1. Every sentence, indeed the whole structure, arising from Mar- cion's impiety and profanity, I now challenge in terms of thatgospel which he has by manipulation made his own. Besides that,to work up credence for it he has contrived a sort of dowry, awork entitled Antitheses because of its juxtaposition of opposites,a work strained into making such a division between the Law andthe Gospel as thereby to make two separate gods, opposite to eachother, one belonging to one instrument (or, as it is more usual tosay, testament), one to the other, and thus lend its patronage tofaith in another gospel, that according to the Antitheses. Now Imight have demolished those antitheses by a specially directedhand-to-hand attack, taking each of the statements of the manof Pontus one by one, except that it was much more convenientto refute them both in and along with that gospel which theyserve: although it is perfectly easy to take action against themby counter-claim,1 even accepting them as admissible, account- ing them valid, and alleging that they support my argument,that so they may be put to shame for the blindness of their author,having now become my antitheses against Marcion. So then Ido admit that there was a different course followed in the olddispensation under the Creator, from that in the new dispensationunder Christ. I do not deny a difference in records of thingsspoken, in precepts for good behaviour, and in rules of law, pro- vided that all these differences have reference to one and the sameGod, that God by whom it is acknowledged that they were or- dained and also foretold. Long ago did Isaiah proclaim that thelaw will go forth from Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem—another law, he means, and another word. In fact, he says, heshall judge among the gentiles, and shall convict many people,ameaningnot of the one nation of the Jews, but of the gentiles who by thenew law of the gospel and the new word of the apostles are beingjudged and convicted in their own sight in respect of their ancient

1. 1 Action by counterclaim. By the forensic device of exceptio peremptaria, thedefendant, arguing that even on his own evidence the claimant must be non- suited, obtains the right to speak first, and becomes in effect the complainant.

IV.1

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

259

error, as soon as they have believed, and thereupon beat theirswords into ploughshares, and their zibynae (which is a sort ofhunting-spear) into pruning-hooks—that is, they are convertingtheir formerly fierce and savage minds into honest thoughtsproductive of a good result. And again: Hearken to me, hearken tome, my people; and ye kings incline your ears to me: because a law willgo forth from me, my judgement also for a light of the gentilesb—that by which he had judged and decreed that the gentiles alsoshould be enlightened by the law and word of the gospel. Thiswill be the law also in David, an unassailable law, because it isperfect, converting the soul,cfrom idols unto God. This also will bethe word, of which Isaiah says again, Because the Lord will makea decisive word upon the earth:dfor the new testament is made veryconcise, and is disentangled from the intricate burdens of the law.What need of more, when more openly and more clearly thanlight itself the Creator by the same prophet foretells of the new- ness? Remember not the former things, neither consider ye the things ofold: old things have passed away, new things are arising: behold, I makenew things, which shall now arise.eAlso by Jeremiah: Renew for your- selves a new fallow, and sow not among thorns, and be circumcised in theforeskin of your heart.fAnd in another place: Behold, the days willcome, saith the Lord, when I will make for the house of Jacob and thehouse of Judah a new testament, not according to the testament which Iordained for their fathers in the day upon which I took to me the ordainingof them, so as to bring them out from the land of Egypt.gThus he indi- cates that the original testament was temporary, since he declaresit changeable, at the same time as he promises an eternal testa- ment for the future. For by Isaiah he says: Hearken to me and yeshall live, and I will ordain for you an eternal testament,hadding alsothe holy and faithful things of David, so as to point out that thattestament would become current in Christ. That Christ would beof the family of David, in accordance with Mary's genealogy, heprophesied also figuratively in the rod which was to come forthout of the root of Jesse.i If therefore he has said that other lawsand other words and new ordainings of testaments would comefrom the Creator, so that his intention is that there shall be otherand better offerings of the sacrifices as well, and that among thegentiles—as Malachi says, I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord,neither will I accept your sacrifices at your hands, because from the risingof the sun even to its going down my name is glorified among the gentiles,

IV.2

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

261

and in every place sacrifice is offered to my name, even a pure offering,jwhich means simple prayer out of a pure conscience—it followsthat every change which results from renewal must lead to dif- ference from those things of which it is <the renewal>, and toopposition as a result of difference. For as nothing that sufferschange escapes being different, so nothing different avoids beingcontrary. So then, the contrariety which results from differencewill pertain to the same one to whom was due the change whichresulted from renewal. He who ordained the change, also estab- lished the difference: he who foretold of the renewal, also toldbeforehand of the contrariety. Why need you explain a differenceof facts as an opposition of authorities? Why need you distortagainst the Creator those antitheses in the evidences, which youcan recognize also in his own thoughts and affections? I will smite,he says, and I will heal:k I will slay, he says, and also make alive, byestablishing evil things and making peace:l because of which itis your custom even to censure him on account of fickleness andinconstancy, in forbidding what he commands and commandingwhat he forbids. Why then have you not also thought out someantitheses for the essential attributes of a Creator always at vari- ance with himself? Not even among your men of Pontus, if Imistake not, have you been able to realize that the world is con- structed out of the diversities of substances in mutual hostility.And so you ought first to have laid it down that there was onegod of light and another of darkness: then you could have affirmedthat there was one god of the law and another of the gospel. Forall that, judgement is already given, and that by manifest proofs,that he whose works and ways are consistently antithetic, hasalso his mysteries <of revelation> consistently of that same pattern.

2. You have there my short and sharp answer to the Antitheses.I pass on next to show how his gospel—certainly not Judaic butPontic—is in places adulterated: and this shall form the basis ofmy order of approach. I lay it down to begin with that the docu- ments of the gospel have the apostles for their authors, and thatthis task of promulgating the gospel was imposed upon them byour Lord himself. If they also have for their authors apostolicmen, yet these stand not alone, but as companions of apostles orfollowers of apostles: because the preaching of disciples might bemade suspect of the desire of vainglory, unless there stood by it

IV.2

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

263

the authority of their teachers, or rather the authority of Christ,which made the apostles teachers. In short, from among theapostles the faith is introduced to us by John and by Matthew,while from among apostolic men Luke and Mark give it renewal,<all of them> beginning with the same rules <of belief>, as far asrelates to the one only God, the Creator, and to his Christ, bornof a virgin, the fulfilment of the law and the prophets. It mattersnot that the arrangement of their narratives varies, so long asthere is agreement on the essentials of the faith—and on thesethey show no agreement with Marcion. Marcion, on the otherhand, attaches to his gospel no author's name,1—as though he towhom it was no crime to overturn the whole body, might notassume permission to invent a title for it as well. At this point Imight have made a stand, arguing that no recognition is due toa work which cannot lift up its head, which makes no show ofcourage, which gives no promise of credibility by having a fullydescriptive title and the requisite indication of the author's name.But I prefer to join issue on all points, nor am I leaving unmen- tioned anything that can be taken as being in my favour. For outof those authors whom we possess, Marcion is seen to have chosenLuke as the one to mutilate.2 Now Luke was not an apostlebut an apostolic man, not a master but a disciple, in any case lessthan his master, and assuredly even more of lesser account asbeing the follower of a later apostle, Paul, to be sure: so that evenif Marcion had introduced his gospel under the name of Paul inperson, that one single document would not be adequate for ourfaith, if destitute of the support of his predecessors. For we shoulddemand the production of that gospel also which Paul found <inexistence>, that to which he gave his assent, that with whichshortly afterwards he was anxious that his own should agree: forhis intention in going up to Jerusalem to know and to consult theapostles, was lest perchance he had run in vain a—that is, lestperchance he had not believed as they did, or were not preachingthe gospel in their manner. At length, when he had conferredwith the original <apostles>, and there was agreement concerningthe rule of the faith, they joined the right hands <of fellowship>,and from thenceforth divided their spheres of preaching, so thatthe others should go to the Jews, but Paul to Jews and gentiles.

If he therefore who gave the light to Luke chose to have his pre- decessors' authority for his faith as well as his preaching, muchmore must I require for Luke's gospel the authority which wasnecessary for the gospel of his master.

3. It is another matter if in Marcion's opinion the Christianreligion, with its sacred content, begins with the discipleship ofLuke. However, as it was on its course even before that, it cer- tainly possessed an authoritative structure by means of which itreached even to Luke: and so with the support of its evidenceLuke also can find acceptance. But Marcion has got hold of Paul'sepistle to the Galatians, in which he rebukes even the apostlesthemselves for not walking uprightly according to the truth of thegospel,a and accuses also certain false apostles of perverting thegospel of Christ: and on this ground Marcion strives hard tooverthrow the credit of those gospels which are the apostles' ownand are published under their names, or even the names of aposto- lic men, with the intention no doubt of conferring on his owngospel the repute which he takes away from those others. Andyet, even if there is censure of Peter and John and James, whowere esteemed as pillars,b the reason is evident. It was that theyappeared to be altering their manner of life through respect ofpersons. Yet since Paul himself made himself all things to all menso that he might gain them all,c Peter too may well have had thisin mind in acting in some respect differently from his manner ofteaching. And besides, if false apostles also had crept in, theircharacter too is indicated: they were insisting on circumcision,and the Jewish calendar. So it was not for their preaching but fortheir forms of activity that they were marked down as wrong byPaul, though he would no less have marked them wrong if theyhad been in any error on the subject of God the Creator, or ofhis Christ. Therefore we have to distinguish between the two cases.If Marcion's complaint is that the apostles are held suspect ofdissimulation or pretence, even to the debasing of the gospel, heis now accusing Christ, by thus accusing those whom Christ haschosen. If however the gospel which the apostles compared withPaul's was beyond reproach, and they were rebuked only for

IV.4

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

267

inconsistency of conduct, and yet false apostles have falsified thetruth of their gospels, and from them our copies are derived, whatcan have become of that genuine apostles' document which hassuffered from adulterators—that document which gave light toPaul, and from him to Luke? Or if it has been completely de- stroyed, so wiped out by a flood of falsifiers as though by somedeluge, then not even Marcion has a true one. Or if that is to bethe true one, if that is the apostles', which Marcion alone possesses,then how is it that that which is not of the apostles, but is ascribedto Luke, is in agreement with ours? Or if that which Marcionhas in use is not at once to be attributed to Luke because it doesagree with ours—though they allege ours is falsified in respect ofits title—then it does belong to the apostles. And in that caseours too, which is in agreement with that other, no less belongsto the apostles, even if it too is falsified in its title.

4. So we must pull away at the rope of contention, swaying withequal effort to the one side or the other. I say that mine is true:Marcion makes that claim for his. I say that Marcion's is falsi- fied: Marcion says the same of mine. Who shall decide betweenus? Only such a reckoning of dates, as will assume that authoritybelongs to that which is found to be older, and will prejudge ascorrupt that which is convicted of having come later. For in sofar as the false is a corruption of the true, to that extent must thetruth have preceded that which is false. An object must have beenin existence before anything is done to it, as what it is in itselfmust be prior to any opposition to it. Otherwise how preposterousit would be that when we have proved ours the older, and thatMarcion's has emerged later, ours should be taken to have beenfalse before it had from the truth material <for falsehood to workon>, and Marcion's be believed to have suffered hostility fromours before it was even published: and in the end <how ridiculous>that that which is later should be reckoned more true, even afterthe publication to the world of all those great works and evidencesof the Christian religion which surely could never have been pro- duced except for the truth of the gospel—even before the gospelwas true. So then meanwhile, as concerns the gospel of Luke,seeing that the use of it shared between us and Marcion becomesan arbiter of the truth, our version of it is to such an extent olderthan Marcion that Marcion himself once believed it. That was

IV.5

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

269

when in the first warmth of faith he presented the catholic churchwith that money which was before long cast out along with himafter he had diverged from our truth into his own heresy. Whatnow, if the Marcionites are going to deny that his faith at firstwas with us—even against the evidence of his own letter? Whatif they refuse to acknowledge that letter? Certainly Marcion'sown Antitheses not only admit this, but even make a show of it.Proof taken from them is good enough for me. If that gospelwhich among us is ascribed to Luke—we shall see <later> whetherit is <accepted by> Marcion—if that is the same that Marcion byhis Antitheses accuses of having been falsified by the upholders ofJudaism with a view to its being so combined in one body withthe law and the prophets that they might also pretend that Christhad that origin, evidently he could only have brought accusationagainst something he had found there already. No one passescensure on things afterwards to be, when he does not know theyare afterwards to be. Correction does not come before fault. Ascorrector apparently of a gospel which from the times of Tiberiusto those of Antoninus had suffered subversion, Marcion comes tolight, first and alone, after Christ had waited for him all that time,repenting of having been in a hurry to send forth apostles withoutMarcion to protect them. And yet heresy, which is always in thismanner correcting the gospels, and so corrupting them, is theeffect of human temerity, not of divine authority: for even ifMarcion were a disciple, he is not above his master: and if Mar- cion were an apostle, Whether it were I, says Paul, or they, so wepreach:aand if Marcion were a prophet, even the spirits of theprophets have to be subject to the prophets,b for they are not<prophets> of subversion but of peace: even if Marcion were anangel, he is more likely to be called anathema than gospel-maker,seeing he has preached a different gospel.c And so, by makingthese corrections, he assures us of two things—that ours camefirst, for he is correcting what he has found there already, andthat that other came later which he has put together out of hiscorrections of ours, and so made into a new thing of his own.

5. To sum up: if it is agreed that that has the greater claim totruth which has the earlier priority, and that has the priority

IV.5

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

271

which has been so since the beginning, and that has been sincethe beginning which was from the apostles, there will be no lessagreement that that was handed down by the apostles which isheld sacred and inviolate in the churches the apostles founded.Let us consider what milk it was that Paul gave the Corinthiansto drink,a by the line of what rule the Galatians were again madeto walk straight,b what the Philippians, the Thessalonians, andthe Ephesians are given to read, what words are spoken also byour near neighbours the Romans, to whom Peter and Paul leftas legacy the gospel, sealed moreover with their own blood. Wehave also churches which are nurselings of John's: for althoughMarcion disallows his Apocalypse, yet the succession of theirbishops, when traced back to its origin, will be found to rest inJohn as originator. In the same way also the legitimacy of theother churches is to be tested. So I affirm that among them—and I am not now speaking only of apostolic churches, but of allthose which are in alliance with them in the fellowship of themysteryc—that gospel of Luke which we at this moment retainhas stood firm since its earliest publication, whereas Marcion'sis to most people not even known, and by those to whom it isknown is also by the same reason condemned. Admittedly thatgospel too has its churches; but they are its own, of late arrivaland spurious: if you search out their ancestry you are more likelyto find it apostatic than apostolic, having for founder either Mar- cion or someone from Marcion's hive. Even wasps make combs,and Marcionites make churches. That same authority of theapostolic churches will stand as witness also for the other gospels,which no less <than Luke's> we possess by their agency and accord- ing to their text—I mean John's and Matthew's, though thatwhich Mark produced is stated to be Peter's, whose interpreterMark was. Luke's narrative also they usually attribute to Paul.It is permissible for the works which disciples published to beregarded as belonging to their masters. And so concerning thesealso Marcion must be called to account, how it is that he haspassed them over, and preferred to take his stand upon Luke's, asthough these too, no less than Luke's, have not been in the churchessince the beginning—indeed it is to be supposed that they haveeven greater claim to have been since the beginning, since theywere earlier, as written by apostles, and established along with

IV.5

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

273

the churches. Otherwise, if the apostles published nothing, howcan it have come about that their disciples published things in- stead, when they could not even have existed as disciples apartfrom some instruction by their masters? So then, since it is evi- dent that these too existed in the churches, how is it that Marcionhas not laid hands on them as well, either to correct if falsified, orto acknowledge if correct? For it is conceivable that any who wereengaged in corrupting one gospel might have taken even greaterinterest in the corruption of gospels whose authenticity they knewhad wider acceptance—false apostles for this very reason, thatit was apostles they would be counterfeiting by this forgery. Themore then Marcion might have corrected things which wouldhave needed correction if they had been corrupt, the more hehas in fact certified that those have not been corrupted which hehas not thought it necessary to correct. So he did correct theone he thought was corrupt. Yet even this he had no right tocorrect: because it was not corrupt. For if the apostolic gospelshave come down to us in their integrity, while the gospel of Luke,in the form in which we have it, is in such agreement with thestandard of those others that it is retained in the churches alongwith them, it is at once evident that Luke's also came down inintegrity until Marcion's act of sacrilege. In fact it was only whenMarcion laid hands upon it, that it became different from theapostolic gospels, and in opposition to them. So I should recom- mend his disciples either to convert those others, late though itbe, into the shape of their own, so that they may have the appear- ance of being in agreement with apostolic gospels—for they areevery day reshaping this of theirs, as they are every day broughtto account by us—or else to take shame of their master, whostands convicted on both accounts, while at one time he bypassesthe truth of the gospel through bad conscience, and at anothertime overturns it through effrontery. These are the sort of sum- mary arguments I use when skirmishing light-armed againstheretics on behalf of the faith of the gospel, arguments whichclaim the support of that succession of times which pleads theprevious question against the late emergence of falsifiers, as wellas that authority of the churches which gives expert witness tothe tradition of the apostles: because the truth must of necessityprecede the false, and proceed from those from whom its traditionbegan.

IV.7

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

275

6. I now advance a step further, while I call to account, as Ihave promised, Marcion's gospel in his own version of it, withthe design, even so, of proving it adulterated. Certainly the wholeof the work he has done, including the prefixing of his Antitheses,he directs to the one purpose of setting up opposition betweenthe Old Testament and the New, and thereby putting his Christin separation from the Creator, as belonging to another god, andhaving no connection with the law and the prophets. Certainlythat is why he has expunged all the things that oppose his view,that are in accord with the Creator, on the plea that they havebeen woven in by his partisans; but has retained those thataccord with his opinion. These it is we shall call to account, withthese we shall grapple, to see if they will favour my case, not his,to see if they will put a check on Marcion's pretensions. Thenit will become clear that these things have been expunged by thesame disease of heretical blindness by which the others have beenretained. Such will be the purpose and plan of my treatise, onthose precise terms which have been agreed by both parties. Mar- cion lays it down that there is one Christ who in the time ofTiberius was revealed by a god formerly unknown, for the salva- tion of all the nations; and another Christ who is destined byGod the Creator to come at some time still future for the re-- establishment of the Jewish kingdom. Between these he sets upa great and absolute opposition, such as that between justice andkindness, between law and gospel, between Judaism and Chris- tianity. From this will also derive my statement of claim, bywhich I lay it down that the Christ of a different god has no rightto have anything in common with the Creator; and again, thatChrist must be adjudged to be the Creator's if he is found tohave administered the Creator's ordinances, fulfilled his pro- phecies, supported his laws, given actuality to his promises, re- vived his miracles, given new expression to his judgements, andreproduced the lineaments of his character and attributes. Irequest you, my reader, always to bear in mind this undertaking,this statement of my case, and begin to be aware that Christbelongs either to Marcion or the Creator, <but not to both>.

7. [Luke 4: 31-7.] Marcion premises that in the fifteenth year ofthe principate of Tiberius he came down into Capernaum, a cityof Galilee—from the Creator's heaven, of course, into which he

IV.7

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

277

had first come down out of his own.1 Did not then due order de- mand that it should first be explained how he came down fromhis own heaven into the Creator's? For why should I not passcensure on such matters as do not satisfy the claims of orderlynarrative, <but let it> always tail off in falsehood? So let us askonce for all a question I have already discussed elsewhere,2whether, while coming down through the Creator's territory andin opposition to him, he could have expected the Creator to lethim in, and allow him to pass on from thence into the earth, whichno less is the Creator's. Next however, admitting that he camedown, I demand to know the rest of the order of that descent. It isno matter if somewhere the word 'appeared' is used. 'Appear' sug- gests a sudden and unexpected sight, <by one> who at some instanthas cast his eyes on a thing which has at that instant appeared.To have come down, however—when that takes place the factis in view and comes beneath the eye: it also puts the event intosequence, and enforces the inquiry in what sort of aspect, in whatsort of array, with how much speed or moderation, as also atwhat time of day, or of night, he came down: and besides that,who saw him coming down, who reported it, and who gaveassurance of a fact not easily credible even to him who gives as- surance. It is quite wrong in fact, that Romulus should have hadProculus to vouch for his ascent into heaven,3 yet that Christshould not have provided himself with a reporter of his god'sdescent from heaven—though that one must have gone up bythe same ladder of lies by which this one came down. Also whathad he to do with Galilee, if he was not the Creator's Christ, forwhom that province was predestined <as the place> for him toenter on his preaching? For Isaiah says: Drink this first, do itquickly, province of Zebulon and land of Naphtali, and ye others who<dwell between> the sea-coast and Jordan, Galilee of the gentiles, yepeople who sit in darkness, behold a great light: ye who inhabit the land,sitting in the shadow of death, a light has arisen upon you.aIt is indeedto the good that Marcion's god too should be cited as one whogives light to the gentiles, for so there was the greater need forhim to come down from heaven—though, if so, he ought to havecome down into Pontus rather than Galilee. Yet since both that

locality and that function of enlightenment do according to theprophecy have their bearing upon Christ, we at once begin todiscern that it was he of whom the prophecy was made, when hemakes it clear on his first appearance that he is come not todestroy the law and the prophets, but rather to fulfil them.b ForMarcion has blotted this out as an interpolation. But in vain willhe deny that Christ said in words a thing which he at once partlyaccomplished in act. For in the meanwhile he fulfilled the pro- phecy in respect of place. From heaven straightway into thesynagogue. As the saying goes, let us get down to it: to your task,Marcion: remove even this from the gospel, Iam not sent butto the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and, It is not <meet> to take awaythe children's bread and give it to dogs:cfor this gives the impressionthat Christ belongs to Israel. I have plenty of acts, if you takeaway his words. Take away Christ's sayings, and the facts willspeak; See how he enters into the synagogue: surely to the lostsheep of the house of Israel. See how he offers the bread of hisdoctrine to the Israelites first: surely he is giving them preferenceas sons. See how as yet he gives others no share of it: surely he ispassing them by, like dogs. Yet on whom would he have beenmore ready to bestow it than on strangers to the Creator, if hehimself had not above all else belonged to the Creator? Yet againhow can he have obtained admittance into the synagogue, appear- ing so suddenly, so unknown, no one as yet having certain know- ledge of his tribe, of his nation, of his house, or even of Caesar'scensus, which the Roman registry still has in keeping,4 a mostfaithful witness to our Lord's nativity? They remembered, surely,that unless they knew he was circumcised he must not be ad- mitted into the most holy places. Or again, even if there were un- limited access to the synagogue, there was no permission to teach,except for one excellently well known, and tried, and approved,and already either for this occasion or by commendation fromelsewhere invested with that function. 'But they were all astonishedat his doctrine.' Quite so. Because, it says, his word was with power,not because his teaching was directed against the law and theprophets. For in fact his divine manner of speaking did affordboth power and grace, building up, much more than pulling

7. 4 The census records are referred to again Ch. 19. 10. There seems to be nonon-Christian evidence that they were preserved in Rome or would be availableto inquirers.

IV.7

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

281

down, the substance of the law and the prophets. Otherwise theywould not have been astonished but horrified; would not havemarvelled at, but immediately shrunk from, a destroyer of thelaw and the prophets—and above all else the preacher of adifferent god, because he could not have given teaching contraryto the law and the prophets, and, by that token, contrary to theCreator, without some previous profession of belief in an alienand hostile deity. As then the scripture gives no indication ofthis kind, but only that the power and authority of his speech werea matter of wonder, it more readily indicates that his teachingwas in accordance with the Creator, since it does not deny that,than that it was opposed to the Creator, since it has not said so.It follows that he must either be acknowledged to belong to himin accordance with whom his teaching was given, or else judgeda turn-coat if his teaching was in accordance with him whom hehad come to oppose. On the same occasion the spirit of the demoncries out, What have we to do with thee, Jesus? Thou art come to destroyus. I know who thou art, the Holy One of God. Here I shall not discusswhether even this appellation was at all appropriate to one whohad no right even to the name of Christ unless he belonged tothe Creator. I have fully discussed his titles in another place.5 Atpresent I require to know how the demon knew that he had thisname, when no prediction referring to him had ever been madein the past by a god unknown and until that time dumb, a godas whose holy one he had no means of invoking him, a god un- known even to the demon's Creator. <I ask also> what sort ofindication he now gave of a new divinity, that by it he could betaken for the holy one of a different god. Merely that he had goneinside the synagogue and not even in word had taken any sortof action against the Creator? As then he had no means of recog- nizing that one whom he had no knowledge of was Jesus and theHoly One of God, it follows that this recognition was of one whomhe did know: for he remembered <two things>, that the prophethad prophesied of the Holy One of God, and that Jesus was God'sname in the son of Nun. He had had these names given by anangel, our gospel relates: Therefore that which shall be born in theeshall be called holy, the Son of God:dand, Thou shalt call his name Jesus.eAlso, though he was only a demon, he had in fact some sense ofthe Lord's purpose, more than if it had been a stranger's and not

yet well enough known. For he began by asking, What have weto do with thee, Jesus?, not as though addressing a stranger, butas one whose concern the Creator's spirits are. For his words werenot, What hast thou to do with us?, but, What have we to do withthee?, in sorrow for himself and in regret at his own case: and ashe now sees what this is he adds, Thou art come to destroy us. To thatextent he had recognized Jesus as the Son of the judge, the aven- ger, and <if I may say so> the severe God, not of that perfectlygood god who knows nothing of destruction and punishment.With what purpose have I begun with this episode? To show youthat Jesus was acknowledged by the demon, and affirmed byhimself, to belong to none other than the Creator. But still, youobject, Jesus rebuked him. Of course he did: he was an embarrass- ment: even in that acknowledgement he was impertinent, andsubmissive in the wrong way, giving the impression that it wouldbe the sum total of Christ's glory to have come for the destructionof demons and not rather for the salvation of men: for it was hewho would have his disciples rejoice not because the spirits weresubject to them but because of their election to salvation.f Elsewhy did he rebuke him? If because he was wholly a liar, then hehimself was neither Jesus nor in any sense holy: if because he waspartly a liar, in having rightly thought him to be Jesus and theHoly One of God, but to belong to the Creator, it was most un- just of him to rebuke one who took the view which he knew hemust take, and did not entertain the idea which he did not knowhe needed to entertain, that he was a different Jesus, and theholy one of a different god. But if his rebuke has no more likelyground than the interpretation we put upon it, in that case thedemon told no lie, and was not rebuked for lying: for Jesus wasJesus himself, and the demon had no means of affording recogni- tion to any besides him: and Jesus gave assurance of being thatone whom the devil had recognized, seeing that his rebuke tothe demon was not on account of a lie.

8. [Luke 4: 16-43.] According to the prophecy, the Creator'sChrist was to be called a Nazarene.a For that reason, and on hisaccount, the Jews call us by that very name, Nazarenes. For weare also those of whom it is written, The Nazarenes were madewhiter than snow,bhaving previously of course been darkened withthe stains of sin, and blackened with the darkness of ignorance. But

IV.8

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

285

to Christ the appellation of Nazarene was to apply because of hishiding-place in infancy, for which he went down to Nazareth, toescape from Archelaus, the son of Herod.c My reason for notleaving this out is that Marcion's Christ ought by rights to haveforsworn all association even with the places frequented by theCreator's Christ, since he had all those towns of Judaea, whichwere not in the same way conveyed over to the Creator's Christby the prophets. But Christ has to be the Christ of the prophets,wherever it is that he is found to accord with the prophets. Evenat Nazareth there is no indication that his preaching was of any- thing new, though for all that, by reason of one single proverb,we are told that he was cast out. Here, as I for the first time ob- serve that hands were laid upon him, I am called upon to saysomething definite about his corporal substance; that he whoadmitted of contact, contact even full of violence, in being seizedand captured and dragged even to the brow of the hill, cannotbe thought of as a phantasm. It is true that he slipped awaythrough the midst of them, but this was when he had experiencedtheir violence, and had afterwards been let go: for, as oftenhappens, the crowd gave way, or was even broken up: there isno question of its being deceived by invisibility, for this, if it hadbeen such, would never have submitted to contact at all.

Touch or be touched nothing but body may,

is a worthy sentence even of this world's philosophy.d In fine, hedid himself before long touch others, and by laying his handsupon them—hands evidently meant to be felt—conveyed thebenefits of healing, benefits no less true, no less free from pretence,than the hands by which they were conveyed. Consequently heis the Christ of Isaiah, a healer of sicknesses: He himself, he says,takes away our weaknesses and carries our sicknesses.eFor the Greeksare accustomed to write 'carry' as equivalent to 'take away'. Thatpromise in general terms is enough for me at present. Whateverit was that Jesus healed, he is mine. We shall however come tospecific instances of healing. Moreover even to deliver fromdemons is a healing of sickness. And so the wicked spirits, as iffollowing the precedent of the previous instance, bore witness tohim as they went out, by crying aloud, Thou art the Son of God.Which God, let it even here be evident. 'But they were rebuked,and ordered to be silent.' Quite so: because Christ wished himself

IV.8

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

287

to be acknowledged as the Son of God by men, not by uncleanspirits—that Christ at all events who had the right to expect this,because he had sent before him those preachers, worthier preachersbeyond question, through whose agency recognition might bepossible. To reject the commendation of an unclean spirit waswithin the rights of him who had at his disposal abundant com- mendations of the Holy Spirit. One however of whom there hadbeen no announcement—if of course he wished to be recognized,for his coming was to no purpose if he did not—would not haverejected the testimony of an alien substance of any sort whatever,if he had no testimony of any substance of his own, and had comedown on to another's property. One thing more: as a destroyerof the Creator his greatest desire would have been to be recognizedby the Creator's spirits and have them spread his name abroad,through the fear they had of him: except that Marcion says thathis god is not an object of fear, claiming that the object of fear isnot the kind god but the judge, with whom are to be found thematerials of fear, which are wrath, severity, judgements, ven- geance, and condemnation. But the demons did in fact submitthrough fear. So then their confession was that he was the Sonof the God who is to be feared: for if there had been no fear in- volved, they could have taken this as an occasion when submissionmight be refused. But in driving them out by command and re- buke, not by persuasion as a kind one would have done, he dis- closed himself as one to be feared. Or perhaps he rebuked themjust because they were afraid of him, being unwilling to be anobject of fear? Yet how did he expect them to come out—a thingthey would not have done except from fear? So then he fell underthe necessity of having to conduct himself contrary to his ownnature, though he might, as being kind, have pardoned themonce for all. He fell also under another bad mark, that of changingsides, when he allowed himself to be feared by the demons as theson of the Creator, so as now to drive the demons out not by anypower of his own but by the Creator's authority. He goes forthinto a desert place. This kind of country the Creator often madeuse of. It was right and proper that the Word should also bevisible in a body in the place where of old time he had been activealso in a cloud. The gospel was well suited by that type of placewhich had been found satisfactory for the law. So let the wilder- ness rejoice—for so Isaiah had promised.f When the multitudes

IV.9

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

289

detained him he said, I must proclaim the kingdom of God to other citiesalso. Had he anywhere yet shown who this god of his was? Noteven yet, I think. But was he speaking of people who knew therewas another god besides? This too I do not believe. So then, ifneither he himself had said anything about another god, nor didthey know of any god besides the Creator, the kingdom he lookedforward to was the kingdom of precisely that God whom he knewto be the only God known to those who heard him.

9. [Luke 5: 1-15.] Out of all possible lands of occupations whyhad he such respect for that of fisherman that from it he took forapostles Simon and the sons of Zebedee—a fact from which anargument was to be drawn cannot be regarded as without signifi- cance—when he said to Peter, amazed because of the abundantdraught of fishes, Fear not, for from henceforth thou shall catch men?By this remark he suggested how they were to understand the pro- phecy was fulfilled, and that he it was who had declared, throughJeremiah, Behold I will send many fishers, and they shall fish them,ameaning men. Thereupon they left their boats and followed him,with understanding of one who had begun to do in fact what hehad said in words. It is quite another thing if he made a pretenceof choosing them from the Association of Shipmasters, becausehe was sometime going to have as his apostle Marcion the navi- gator. Now I have already postulated, in opposition to the Anti- theses, that Marcion's purpose is in no sense served by what hesupposes to be an opposition between the law and the gospel,because this too was ordained by the Creator, and in fact wasforetold by that promise of a new law and a new word and anew testament. But seeing that he argues with unusual insistencein the presence of one whom he calls a kind of
suntalai/pwroj,companion in misery, and summisou&menoj,
companion in hatred,1regarding the cleansing of the leper, I shall not think it amiss tomeet him, and first to show him the force of that figurative law:for by the example of the leprous person who must not be touchedbut must even be excluded from all communication with others,it forbade association with any man defiled by sins—with whomthe apostle too says we must not even eat:b for the stains of sins arepassed from one to another, as by contagion, if anyone makescontact with a sinner. And so our Lord, who desired to suggest

9. 1 Tertullian's Latin words seem to be a burlesque on the Greek words ofself-depreciation applied to himself by Marcion.

IV.9

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

259

deeper understanding of that law which indicates spiritual thingsby means of things carnal, and on that account was not pullingdown but rather building up that law which he wished men toacknowledge as a matter of closer concern, touched the leper:for although a man could have suffered defilement from such aone, God could certainly not be defiled, being immune fromcontamination. Thus there can be no injunction laid upon himthat he ought to have observed the law and not have touched theunclean person, since contact with the unclean was not going todefile him. That this is more in keeping with my Christ I showyou by this, that I prove it is not in keeping with yours. For if itwas in hostility to the law that he touched the leper, making thecommandment of the law of no account through contempt ofdefilement—how could he possibly suffer defilement who possessedno body which might be defiled? For a phantasm cannot sufferdefilement. He therefore who was incapable of defilement be- cause he was a phantasm, will be found to be immune from con- tamination not through divine power but by the phantasm'sinanity. Nor can he be supposed to have held in contempt thatdefilement which he had no ground for: nor for that matter tohave destroyed the law, since he had escaped defilement throughthe good fortune of the phantasm and not by any display ofpower. But even though Elisha, the Creator's prophet, cleansedno more than one leper, Naaman the Syrian, when there were allthose many lepers in Israel, even this does not indicate that Christwas in some sense different, as though he were in this respectsuperior, that being a stranger he cleansed an Israelite leper,whom his own Lord had not had power to cleanse: because theSyrian was more easily cleansed as a sign throughout the gentilesof their cleansing in Christ the light of the gentiles, who weremarked with those seven stains of capital sins, idolatry, blasphemy,homicide, adultery, fornication, false witness, fraud. Thereforeseven times over, as though once under each heading, did hewash in Jordan, both with intent to prophesy the purging of thewhole seven, and because the force and fullness of one singlewashing was reserved for Christ alone, who was to make uponearth not only a determined wordc but also a determined washing.Even in this Marcion sees an 'opposition', that whereas Elishaneeded a material help, and made use of water, seven times atthat, Christ by the act of his word alone, without repeating it,

IV.9

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

293

immediately put the healing into effect—as though I were notbold enough to claim even the word he used, as part of theCreator's property. In any and every object the primary authorhas the better claim to it. You regard it perhaps as incredible thatthe Creator's power should with a word have performed the heal- ing of one single sickness, though that power did with a wordproduce at an instant this great fabric of the universe. How bettermay one discern the Christ of the Creator than by the power ofhis word? But perhaps he is another's Christ, because his actionis other than Elisha's, because any master is more powerful thanhis own servant. By what right, Marcion, do you rule that servants'activities are exactly like their masters' ? Are you not afraid of itturning to your discredit if you claim that Christ is not theCreator's, on the ground that he had greater powers than theCreator's servant, when it is evident that he is greater by com- parison with Elisha's littleness—if indeed he isgreater? For thehealing is the same, though the method of working is different.Has your Christ provided a greater gift than my Elisha gave?What indeed was that great effect of your Christ's word, whichdid just the same as the Creator's river had done?2 The rest ofwhat he does follows the same course. As far as concerned avoid- ance of human glory, he told him to tell no man: as concernedthe observance of the law, he ordered the proper course to befollowed: Go, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift which Mosescommanded. Knowing that the law was in the form of prophecy,he was safeguarding its figurative regulations even in his ownmirrored images of them, which indicated that a man who hasbeen a sinner, as soon as he is cleansed by the word of God, isbound to offer in the temple a sacrifice to God, which meansprayer and giving of thanks in the church through Christ Jesus,the universal high priest of the Father. This is why he added,That it may be to you for a testimony—no doubt by which he testi- fied that he did not destroy the law but fulfilled it, a testimony thatit was he and no other of whom it was foretold that he would takeupon him their diseases and sicknesses. This entirely adequate andnecessary interpretation of that testimony Marcion, in subser- vience to his own Christ, seeks to discount under the pretence of

9. 2 Tertullian's affectation of having surrendered to his opponents the Christof their mutilated gospel here causes him to forget that he is really discussingthe acts of the true Christ recorded in the authentic gospel.

IV.9

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

295

consideration and gentleness. For, says he, being kind, and know- ing besides that every man set free from leprosy would follow outthe observances of the law, he for that reason ordered him todo so. What after that? Did he continue in kindness, that is, inpermission to observe the law, or did he not? If he continuedbeing kind, he can never become a destroyer of the law, nor canhe be taken to belong to that other god, since there is a cessationof that destruction of the law on account of which it is claimed hebelongs to the other god. If he did not continue being kind, sub- sequently destroying the law, then it was false witness that heafterwards lodged with them at the healing of the leper: for hebecame a renegade from goodness, in that he destroyed the law.So he is now evil, as a subverter of the law, if he was kind whileallowing the law to be kept. Yet even by his act in once allowingobedience to the law, he gave assurance that the law is good. Forno man gives permission for obedience to an evil thing. It followsthat in the one case he was bad, if he allowed obedience to a lawwhich was bad, and in the other case worse, if he came as thedestroyer of a law that was good. Moreover, if his command tooffer the gift was contingent on his knowledge that every manfreed from leprosy would make that offering, it was also in hispower to have issued no command for an act which he knewwould take place without it. Also in vain has he come down as withintent to destroy the law, when he makes concessions to keepersof the law. What is more, since he was aware of the habits of thosepeople, he ought to have taken precautionary action to turn themaway from it, if that was the reason for his coming. Why thendid he not keep silence, and let the man obey the law withoutprompting? In that case he could be thought to have made someconcession to his tolerance. Instead of which he adds even hisown authority, strengthened by the weight of that testimony—testimony of what, unless of enforcing the law? Truly it makes nodifference in what way he confirmed the law, whether as kind, or asdisinterested, or as tolerant, or as inconstant, provided, Marcion,that I drive you from your position. So then he has commandedthe law to be fulfilled: in whatever sense he gave this command,he can in the same sense have stated the principle, Iam not cometo destroy the law but to fulfil it.dWhat good then did it do you toexcise from the gospel a sentence which remains there still? Youhave admitted that he did for kindness' sake something which you

IV.10

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

297

deny that he said. So there is proof that he said it, because hedid do it, and that it is you that have excised the Lord's wordsfrom the gospel, and not our people that have foisted them in.

10. [Luke 5: 18-26.] Also a palsied man is healed, and that amidsta throng, with the people looking on. For, says Isaiah, the peopleshall see the excellency of the Lord, and the glory of God. What excel- lency, and what glory? Be strengthened, ye weak hands, and ye en- feebled knees—which indicates paralysis. Be strengthened, fear not.aNot without purpose does he twice say Be strengthened, nor to noeffect does he add Fear not, because along with renewal of limbshe was promising also a restoration of strength: Arise and take upthy bed: as well as firmness of mind, so as not to be afraid of thosewho would ask, Who shall forgive sins but God alone? Here then youfind fulfilled the prophecy of a particular form of healing, as wellas of matters consequent upon the healing. In the same prophetlikewise you may recognize Christ as one who forgives sins: Be- cause, he says, among very many he shall forgive their sins, and, Hehimself taketh away our sins.bFor <you will find it> also earlier on,our Lord in person speaking: Though your sins be as scarlet, I willmake them white as snow: though they be as crimson, I will make themwhite as wool,cindicating by scarlet the blood of the prophets, andby crimson the blood of our Lord, as more noble. Also Micah,concerning forgiveness of sins, Who is a God like unto thee, who takestaway iniquities and passest over injustices for the residue of thine inheri- tance? And he retained not his wrath for a testimony, because he desiredthere should be mercy. He will turn back, he will have mercy upon us: he willoverwhelm our iniquities, and overwhelm our sins in the depth of the sea.dYet even though nothing of this sort had been foretold in respectof Christ, I should have in the Creator instances of this kindness,such as promise me in the Son too the affections of the Father.I see the men of Nineveh obtaining from the Creator the forgive- ness of their crimes—or I should rather say 'from Christ', becauseeven from the beginning he has acted in the Father's name. Iread also that when David confessed his sin against Uriah,Nathan the prophet said, Also the Lord hath cancelled out thy sinand thou shall not die:ealso that king Ahab, the husband of Jezebel,guilty of idolatry and of the blood of Naboth, earned pardon onaccount of repentance:f and that Jonathan the son of Saul wipedout by deprecation the guilt of a broken fast.g Why need I tell

IV.10

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

299

of the nation itself so often restored by forgiveness of sins—by thatGod who would rather have mercy than sacrifice, and a sinner'srepentance rather than his death?h First then you have to denythat the Creator ever forgave sins, and secondly you have to provethat he never prophesied anything of that kind regarding hisChrist: only so will you prove the newness of the kindness of yournew Christ, if you succeed in proving that it is neither character- istic of the Creator nor prophesied of by the Creator. But whetherthe forgiving of sins can be in character with one who is said notto notice them, or whether one can absolve who cannot if neces- sary condemn, or whether there is any consistency in pardon beinggranted by one against whom no offence has been committed,this I have already discussed, and prefer now to draw attentionto that, and not to discuss it again. On the expression Son of manmy postulates are two: first that Christ was incapable of lying,so as to declare himself the Son of man if he was not really so:and that no one can be accepted as Son of man who is not ofhuman birth, either on the father's side or the mother's: and thiswill call for discussion, on what side his human birth must betaken to be, the father's or the mother's. Now if he is from Godas father, certainly his father is not a man: if his father is not aman, the only thing left is for him to be of a human mother: andif of a human <mother> it is already evident that she is a virgin.For as there is ascribed to him no human father, neither can hismother be reckoned to have a husband: and <this mother> towhom no husband is reckoned, is a virgin. Otherwise there willbe two fathers involved, God and a man, if his mother is not avirgin. For she has to have a husband, if she is not to be a virgin,and by having a husband she will cause him who was to be theSon of God and of man to have two fathers, God and a man.That perhaps is the sort of nativity the old tales ascribe to Castorand Hercules. But if the distinctions are made in this form, that is,if on his mother's side he is the Son of man because he is not theSon of man on his father's side, and if his mother is a virginbecause he has no man for his father, this must be Isaiah's Christwhom he prophesies that a virgin will conceive. By what reason- ing then, Marcion, you accept Son of man <into the text of yourgospel> I am unable to understand. If <you mean> son of a humanfather, you deny that he is the Son of God: if <you mean> son ofGod as well, you are making Christ into Hercules out of the old

IV.10

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

301

story: if only his mother was human, you admit that he is mine:if neither father nor mother was human, then he is not the sonof man at all, and we must conclude that he told a lie when hecalled himself something that he was not. One thing alone canget you out of these straits—if you are bold enough either to giveyour god, the father of Christ, the name of Man, which is whatValentinus did with the aeon,1 or else to deny that the virgin ishuman, which is a thing not even Valentinus has done. Next,what if in Daniel Christ is dignified with this actual title, Son ofman ?
i Is not this good enough proof that Christ is the subject ofprophecy? For when he calls himself by that title which was inprophecy applied to the Christ of the Creator, without questionhe offers himself for recognition as that one to whom the prophecyapplied. Joint possession of names, perhaps, can be regarded ashaving no special significance—though even so I maintain thatpersons possessed of opposite characteristics had no right to becalled either Christ or Jesus. But a title, such as 'Son of man',arises from attendant circumstances, and to that extent it is noteasy for it to have any pertinence beyond the possession of thesame name. Arising from attendant circumstances, it is applicableto one person alone, especially when there is no recurrence ofthe same cause for which it could become a joint possession. Sothen if Marcion's Christ too were reported to be of human birth,in that case he also would be eligible for joint possession of thetitle, and there would be two sons of man, as there would be twonamed Christ and Jesus. Therefore since this title belongs to thatone alone to whom it has reason to apply, if it is also claimed foranother, one in whom there is joint possession of the name thoughnot of the title, the joint possession of the name too falls undersuspicion in the case of the one for whom without good reasonis claimed joint possession of the title. So it follows that we musttake it to be one and the same Person whom we believe morecapable of possessing both the name and the title, to the exclusionof the other who, having no good reason for it, is not in jointpossession of the title. Nor can anyone be found more capable ofpossessing both <name and title> than he who first came into pos- session of the name of Christ and the title Son of man, namely

10. 1 In the Valentinian system Man (Anthropos), with his consort Church,was not a man but a supercelestial personage, in the second tetrad of emanationsfrom the original Depth and Silence. He was thus far higher than the Creator,who was entirely excluded from the fullness of the godhead. Cf. adv. Val. 8.

IV.10

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

303

the Creator's Jesus. He it was whom the Babylonian king sawin the furnace, a fourth along with his martyrs, in form like a sonof man.2, j He was also revealed expressly to Daniel himself asthe Son of mank coming as judge with the clouds of heaven, asscripture also shows him to be. I have affirmed that this could beenough about the names the prophets give in reference to theSon of man. But scripture provides me with still more, by ourLord's own interpretation. When the Jews were taking accountonly of his manhood, not yet aware that he was also God, as beingalso God's Son, and were (as might be expected) arguing thata man cannot forgive sins, but only God can, how is it that theanswer he gave them concerning man, that he has power toforgive sins—when by using the expression 'Son of man' he im- plied 'man' as well—was not in terms of their objection? Was itnot that it was his wish by this title Son of man from the book ofDaniel to turn their complaint back upon them in such form asto prove that he who was forgiving sins was both God and Man—that one and only Son of man in terms of Daniel's prophecy, whohad obtained power to judge, and by it of course the power toforgive sins (for he who judges also acquits)—and so after thatcause of offence had been dispersed by his citation of scripture,they might the more readily recognize from that very act of for- giving sins that he and no other was the Son of man? Actually,he had never before professed himself the Son of man, but onthis occasion first on which he first forgave sins—that is, on whichhe first exercised judgement, by acquittal. On this subject takenote of what all the arguments amount to which our adversariesallege. They cannot avoid arriving at such a pitch of madnessas to insist <that Christ is> the Son of man, so as not to make hima liar, yet to deny that he is of human birth, to escape admittingthat he is the Virgin's son. But if both divine authority, and thefacts of nature, and common logic, do not admit of this hereti- cal idiocy, we have even here occasion to insist, in the sharpestpossible terms, on the reality of <Christ's> body, in opposition toMarcion's phantasms. If, being the Son of man, he is of humanbirth, there is body derived from body. Evidently you could moreeasily discover a man born without heart or brains, like Marcion,

10. 2The Babylonian king said 'one like a son of a god'. Tertullian was think- ing of Dan. 7: 13 and 10: 16; he makes the same mistake adv.Prax. 16. Below,Ch. 21. 8, he explains tanquam.

IV.11

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

305

than without a body, like Marcion's Christ. Go and search thenfor the heart, or the brains, of that man of Pontus.

11. [Luke 5: 27-39.] The publican chosen by our Lord for adisciple is brought into the argument by Marcion with the sug- gestion that because he was outside the law and regarded by theJews as unclean, he must have been chosen by one hostile to thelaw. It has escaped his notice even concerning Peter, a man underthe law, who was for all that not only chosen but received com- mendation for having knowledge granted him by the Father.a Hehad nowhere, <it appears>, seen it written that Christ is pro- claimed as the light and hope and expectation of the gentiles.Yet <Christ> expressed approval of Jews more than others whenhe said that the whole have no need of a physician, but those thatare sick: for if by those in ill health he meant them to understandthose heathen men and publicans of whom he was making hischoice, this was an assurance that those Jews who he said hadno need of a physician, were in good health. If that is so, hiscoming down to destroy the law was ill-conceived, if his purposewas the remedy of that ill-health, when those who were living inthe law were in good health, and had no need of a physician.What can have been the use of his setting out the parable of thephysician and not acting on it? For just as no one brings a physi- cian to people in health, neither does he bring one to people soalien as man is from Marcion's god, when that man has his ownauthor and protector, and from him for preference that physicianwho is Christ. This the parable predetermines, that the physicianis more likely to be provided by him to whom the sick personsbelong. From what direction does John make his appearance?Christ unexpected: John also unexpected. With Marcion allthings are like that: with the Creator they have their own com- pact order. The rest about John later, since it is best to answereach separate point as it arises. At present I shall make it mypurpose to show both that John is in accord with Christ andChrist in accord with John, the Creator's Christ with the Creator'sprophet, that so the heretic may be put to shame at having to noadvantage made John's work of no advantage. For if John's workhad been utterly without effect when, as Isaiah says, he criedaloud in the wilderness as preparer of the ways of the Lord bythe demanding and commending of repentance, and if he had

IV.11

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

307

not along with the others baptized Christ himself, no one couldhave challenged Christ's disciples for eating and drinking, orreferred them to the example of John's disciples who were assi-dous in fasting and prayer: because if any opposition had stoodbetween Christ and John, and between the followers of each,there could have been no demand for imitation, and the forceof the challenge would have been lost. For no one could thinkit strange and no one be put to grief if the rival preachings ofhostile divinities were also discordant in their rules of conduct,having begun by being discordant in the authorities imposing therules. Consequently Christ belonged to John and John to Christ,and both to the Creator, both concerned with the law and theprophets, as preachers and teachers. Otherwise Christ would haverepudiated John's rules, as pertaining to a different god, andwould have commended his disciples for quite rightly followingdifferent practices, having been brought into the service of adifferent divinity of opposite character. As things are, by sub- missively offering the explanation that the sons of the bridegroomcould not fast so long as the bridegroom was with them, and bypromising that they would afterwards fast when the bridegroomhad been taken from them, he did not commend the disciples,but rather found excuses for them, as though the rebuke was notwithout cause, nor did he repudiate John's rule of conduct butrather gave it approval: for the present he allowed it to John'scircumstances, for the future approving it for circumstances ofhis own. Otherwise he would have repudiated it, and commendedits opponents, if the rule which then existed had not been a ruleof his own. I recognize my Christ also under that name of Bride- groom, of whom the psalm speaks: He himself is as a bridegroomcoming forth out of his chamber: from the height of heaven is his goingforth, and his returning even unto the height of it.bAlso in Isaiah, re- joicing in his father's presence, he says, Let my soul exult in the Lord,for he hath clothed me with the garment of salvation and with the robe ofjoyfulness, as for a bridegroom, and hath placed upon me a crown as fora bride.cHe accounts the church as in himself, and concerningit the same Spirit says to him: Thou shall clothe thee with them all,as an ornament upon a bride.dThis bride Christ also summons to him- self by the mouth of Solomon, if indeed you have found thiswritten, Come, my bride, from Lebanon,epleasantly introducing themention of Lebanon, the mountain, which among the Greeks is

IV.11

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

309

the word for incense: for it was out of idolatry that he made thechurch his bride. Now deny, if you can, your utter madness,Marcion: you go so far as to assail the law of your own god. Hecontracts no marriages, nor recognizes them when contracted,refuses baptism except to the celibate or the eunuch, keeping itback until death or divorce. How then can you call his Christa bridegroom? This title belongs to him who has joined togethermale and female, not to one who has put them asunder. Youare in error also about that pronouncement of our Lord in whichhe is seen to make a distinction between new things and old. Youare puffed up with old wineskins, and befuddled with new wine,and consequently have sewn the patch of heretical newness uponthe old, which is the prior, gospel. In what respect, please tellme, is the Creator other <than himself>? When he gave commandby Jeremiah, Renew for yourselves a new fallow,fdid he not turnthem away from things old? When by Isaiah he declares, Theold things are passed away, behold these are new things that I make,gishe not turning them round towards new things? I have longsince established the fact that this termination of the ancientthings was rather the Creator's own promise made actual inChrist, under the authority of that one same God to whom be- long both old things and new. For new wine is not put into oldbottles by one who has never had any old bottles, and no manadds a new piece to an old garment unless he has an old garmentto add it to. The <only> person who abstains from doing a thingif it ought not to be done, is the person who has the means ofdoing it if it ought to be done. Consequently, if <Christ> wasapplying the parable to this purpose, of indicating that he separa- ted the newness of the gospel from the oldness of the law, he madeit clear that that from which he separated it was his own, andought not to have been stigmatized as evil by the separationof things which did not belong: because no man combines hisown belongings with those of others just to make it possible toseparate them from those of the others. Separation is possiblebecause things are conjoined: and their conjunction brings itabout. So he made it plain that the things he was separating hadonce been in unity, as they would have continued to be if he werenot separating them. In that sense we admit this separation, byway of reformation, of enlargement, of progress, as fruit is sepa- rated from seed, since fruit comes out of seed. So also the gospel is

IV.12

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

311

separated from the law, because it is an advance from out of thelaw, another thing than the law, though not an alien thing,different, though not opposed. Nor is there in Christ any novelstyle of discourse. When he sets forth similitudes, when he answersquestions, this comes from the seventy-seventh psalm: Iwill openmy mouth, he says, in a parable, which means a similitude: Iwillutter dark sayings,hwhich means, I will explain difficulties. If youhad wished to prove a man was of a foreign nation, perhaps youwould do so by his idiomatic use of his native speech.

12. [Luke 6: 1-11.] Concerning the sabbath also I make thispreliminary remark, that there could have been no ground forthis objection either, except that Christ represented himself asLord of the sabbath.1 There could have been no discussion as towhy he was breaking the sabbath, if it had been his duty to breakit. And it would have been his duty to break it, if he had belongedto that other god, and no one would have been surprised at hisdoing what it was incumbent upon him to do. The reason fortheir surprise then was that it was not his business both to repre- sent God the Creator and to assail his sabbath. So then, that wemay have a decision on all these primary matters, so as not to haveto repeat ourselves at every quibble of our opponent which restsupon some new aspect of Christ's teaching, this postulate shallbe taken as established, that the only reason why discussion aroseat the novelty of any of his teaching was that nothing had everyet been said about any novel deity, nor had there been anydiscussion of it: nor can the retort be made that by the actualnovelty of each point of his teaching Christ gave sufficient proofof a different deity, since it is perfectly clear that there is no roomfor surprise at the existence in Christ of that novelty which theCreator had actually promised. Surely the natural process wouldhave been for that other god to be first brought to notice, andafterwards for his moral code to be introduced: because it is thegod that gives authority to the code, not the code that givesauthority to the god—unless of course Marcion did not obtainhis perverse writings from a teacher but learned of the teacherthrough the writings. The other considerations regarding thesabbath I set out as follows. If Christ did subvert the sabbath,he acted after the Creator's example: for at the siege of the city

12. 1 The sabbath: II. 21 and adv. Jud. 4.

IV.12

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

313

of Jericho the carrying of the ark of the covenant round the wallsfor eight days, including the sabbath, by the Creator's expresscommand, broke the sabbath by working—or so those peoplethink who have the same opinion also of Christ, being unawarethat neither did Christ break the sabbath nor did the Creator,as I shall shortly show. Even so, the sabbath was on that occasionbroken by Joshua so that this too might be taken as referring toChrist. Even if it was through hatred that he made an attack onthe Jews' most solemn day because <as Marcion alleges> he wasnot the Jews' Christ, even by this hatred of the sabbath he, theCreator's Christ, acknowledged the Creator, following up his crymade by the mouth of Isaiah: Your new moons and sabbaths my soulhateth.aNow in whatever sense this was spoken we know that incircumstances of this kind a sharp reproof has to be put in actionagainst a sharp provocation. Next I shall argue the case in refer- ence to the actual subject in which Christ's rule of conduct hasbeen thought to destroy the sabbath. The disciples had beenhungry: on that very day they had plucked the ears of corn andrubbed them in their hands: by preparing food they had madea breach in the holy day. Christ holds them guiltless, and so be- comes guilty of infringing the sabbath: the pharisees are hisaccusers. Marcion takes exception to the heads2 of the controversy—if I may play about a bit with the truth of my Lord3—writtendocument and intention. A plausible answer2 is based upon theCreator's written document and on Christ's intention, as bythe precedent of David who on the sabbath day entered into thetempleb and prepared food by boldly breaking up the loaves ofthe shewbread.4 For he too remembered that even from thebeginning, since the sabbath day was first instituted, this privilegewas granted to it—I mean exemption from fasting. For when theCreator forbade the gathering of two days' supply of manna, heallowed it only on the day before the sabbath, so that by havingfood prepared the day before he might make immune fromfasting the holy day of the sabbath that followed. Well it is thenthat our Lord followed the same purpose in breaking down thesabbath—if that is what they want it called: well it is also that he

12. 2Status and color as terms of rhetoric: Quintilian, inst. orat. in. vi sqq.3 Holmes translates this: 'if I may call in aid the truth of my Lord to ridiculehis arts'. He may be right.4 At 1 Sam. 21:3 the sabbath is not mentioned.

IV.12

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

315

gave effect to the Creator's intention by the privilege of notfasting on the sabbath. In fact he would have once and for allbroken the sabbath, and the Creator besides, if he had enjoinedhis disciples to fast on the sabbath, in opposition to the fact ofscripture and of the Creator's intention. So then, as he did notkeep his disciples in close constraint, but now finds excuse forthem: as he puts in answer human necessity as begging for con- siderate treatment: as he conserves the higher privilege of thesabbath, of freedom from sorrow rather than abstention fromwork: as he associates David and his followers with his owndisciples in fault and in permission: as he is in agreement with therelaxation the Creator has given: as after the Creator's examplehe himself is equally kind: is he on that account an alien fromthe Creator? After that the pharisees watch if he will heal a manon the sabbath, that they might accuse him—evidently <accuse him>as a breaker of the sabbath, not as the setter forth of a strangegod: for perhaps I shall everywhere insist on this point alone, thatnowhere was there any prophecy of a different Christ. But thepharisees were utterly in error about the law of the sabbath,having failed to notice that it is under certain conditions that itenjoins abstention from works, under a specific aspect of them. Forwhen it says of the sabbath day, No work of thine shall thou do in it,cby saying thine it has made a ruling concerning that human workwhich any man performs by his craft or business, not divine work.But the work of healing or of rescue is not properly man'swork but God's. So again in the law it says, In it thou shall do nomanner of work, save that which is to be done for every soul, that is, withthe purpose of setting a soul free: for the work of God can be doneeven by the agency of a man, for the saving of a soul, yet God isthe doer of it: and this as Man Christ also was going to do, be- cause he is also God. Because of his desire to lead them towardsthis understanding of the law by the restoration of the witheredhand, he asks them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath, or not ? toset a soul free, or to destroy it?: so that by giving approval to thatsort of work which he purposed to do for the soul, he might givethem warning of what works the law of the sabbath forbade,human works, and what works it enjoined, divine works, whichwere to be done for every soul. He called himself Lord of thesabbath, because he was protecting the sabbath as belonging tohimself. Though even if he had broken it, he would have had the

IV.12

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

317

right to, because he who has given a thing existence is even morethan lord of it. But he did not, as its Lord, wholly destroy it, andso it can now become clear that not even of old at the carryingof the ark at Jericho was the sabbath destroyed. For that too wasa work of God, which he himself had commanded, and whichhe had ordained for the sake of the souls of his own men whichwere exposed to the hazards of war. And even if he has in someplace expressed his hatred of sabbaths, by saying Your sabbaths,dhe reckons as men's sabbaths, not his own, those which are cele- brated without the fear of God by a people full of sins, who loveGod with the lips and not with the heart: while to his own sabbaths,all such as should be kept by his rules, he assigned a differentquality, and these he afterwards by that same prophet pro- nounces true and delightsomee and not to be profaned.f Nor thendid Christ in any way revoke the sabbath, but retained the lawof it both just before in the case of the disciples when he performeda work for their soul—for he granted to hungry men the comfortof food—and just now when he heals the withered hand: oneach occasion he insists by his actions, Iam not come to destroy thelaw but to fulfil it,geven if Marcion has closed his mouth with thisword. Even in this instance he fulfilled the law by explaining thecircumstances which condition it, by throwing light upon differentkinds of works, by doing the things which the law exempts fromthe restraints of the sabbath, by making even more holy by hisown kind deeds that sabbath day which since the beginning hadbeen holy by the Father's kind words; for in it he made himselfthe minister of those divine aids, <a ministry> which an adversarywould have provided for on other days to avoid doing honour tothe Creator's sabbath and giving back to the sabbath the workswhich are proper to it. If on that day the prophet Elisha restoredto lifeh the Shunamite woman's son that was dead,5 you observe,O pharisee, and you too, Marcion, that of old it was the Creator'spractice to do good on sabbath days, to set a soul free, not todestroy it, and that Christ introduced nothing new, nothing whichwas not in line with the example, the gentleness, the mercy, eventhe prophecies, of the Creator. For here too he puts into presenteffect the prophecy of a particular kind of healing: weak handsare strengthened,i as also were enfeebled knees in the sick of thepalsy.

12. 5 At 2 Kings 4: 23 the woman's husband says it is not the sabbath.

IV.13

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

319

13. [Luke 6: 12-19.] You cannot deny that he brings to Sion andJerusalem good tidings of peace and of all good things, nor thathe goes up into the mountain and there spends all night in prayer,and in effect is heard by his Father. Open then the prophets, andyou will find it all set in order there. Get thee up, says Isaiah, intothe high mountain, O thou that bringest good tidings to Sion, lift up thyvoice with strength, thou that bringest good tidings to Jerusalem.aEvennow with strength were they astonished at his doctrine: for hetaught them as one that had power.b And again: Therefore mypeople shall know my name at that day—what name, unless it beChrist's?—because it is I myself who speak:cbecause it was he him- self who was then speaking in the prophets, the Word, the Sonof the Creator. I am here, while the time is, upon the mountains, as onethat bringeth good tidings of the hearing of peace, as bringing good tidingsof good things.dAlso Nahum, one of the twelve, For behold, swiftupon the mountain are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings of peace:eBut concerning the voice of prayer all night to the Father, thepsalm manifestly speaks: O my God, I will cry throughout the day,and thou wilt hear, and at night, and it shall not be to me for vanity.fAndin another place a psalm speaks of the same place and voice:With my voice I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me from his holy moun- tain.gSo you have his name made present, you have the actionof one who brings good tidings, you have his place on the moun- tain, and the time at night, and the sound of the voice, and theFather hearing him: you have the Christ of the prophets. Butwhy did he choose twelve apostles, and not some other number?Nay but even from this I could find that my Christ is indicated,one foretold not only by the voices of the prophets but also bythe evidences of facts. I find figurative indications of this numberin the Creator's scriptures, the twelve springs at Elim, the twelvejewels on Aaron's priestly garment, and the twelve stones chosenby Joshua out of Jordan and laid up in the ark of the covenant.hFor this was a previous indication that apostles to that numberwould like fountains and rivers irrigate the world of the gentileswhich had formerly been dried up and deserted of knowledge—as he also says in Isaiah, Iwill place rivers in a waterless landi—andwould like jewels shed light upon the holy vesture of the church,that vesture which Christ the Father's high priest has put on,and would be firm in the faith like stones which the true Joshua

IV.14

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

321

has chosen out of the baptism of Jordan and received into theholy place of his own covenant. Has Marcion's Christ anythingthat justifies his retention of that number? It cannot be thoughtthat a thing was done by him without special meaning, whichcan be seen to have been done by my Christ with special mean- ing. The fact itself must belong to the one with whom is foundthe preparation for the fact. Also he changes Simon's name toPeter, because the Creator too had altered the names of Abrahamand Sarah and Auses, calling this last one Joshua [Jesus], addingsyllables to the other two. Also why Peter? If because of force-fulness of faith, there were many firm and solid materials to lenda name of their own. Or was it because Christ is both rock andstone? For we do indeed find it written that he is set for a stoneof stumbling and a rock of offence.j I leave out the rest. And sohe made a point of passing on to the dearest of his disciples aname specially connected with the types of himself, a closer name,I imagine, than one drawn from other types than his. Therecome together from Tyre and Sidon, and from other countries, amultitude even from over the sea. This the psalm had in mind:And behold, the Philistines and Tyre and the people of the Morians, thesehave been there: Mother Sion, a man will say, and he became man in her—because God as man was born—and he hath builded her by the willof the Fatherk—that you may know that the reason why the gentilesthen came together to him was that God as Man had been bornand was to build up the church by the Father's will, even fromamong the Philistines. So also Isaiah, Lo, these do come from far,and these come from the north and from the sea, and others from the landof the Persians.lOf these he says again, Lift up thine eyes round aboutand see, all these are gathered together.mAnd of the same a little later,when she sees the unknown and the strangers: And thou shall sayto thine heart, Who hath begotten me these? and who hath brought me upthese? and these, tell me, where have they been?nMust not this be theChrist of the prophets? So who can the Christ of the Marcionitesbe? If perversity is to their mind, the Christ who was not of theprophets.

14. [Luke 6: 20-2.] I come next to those customary judgements bywhich he builds up his own special doctrine, what I may call the

IV.14

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

323

magisterial edict of Christ.1Blessed are the indigent—for the transla- tion of the word which is in the Greek requires it so—for theirs isthe kingdom of God. Now this very fact that he begins with blessingsis characteristic of the Creator, who with no other voice than ofbenediction gave sanctity to the universe of things as soon as hemade them. For he says, My heart hath disgorged a supremely goodword.aThis must be that excellent Word, of benediction surely,who by the precedent of the old covenant is recognized as theinitiator of the new covenant as well. What wonder is it then, ifhe also by words of this kind begins his discourse with the Crea- tor's affections, the Creator who always expresses his love forthe indigent, the poor, the humble, and the widows and orphans,comforting, protecting, and avenging them—so that you maytake this (as it were) private bounty of Christ to be a stream fromthe Saviour's fountains? Truly I do not know which way to turnamong so great a multitude of words such as these, as it might bein a thicket or a meadow or an orchard of fruits. I must take upeach instance at random, as chance suggests it. The psalm callsout, Judge for the fatherless and indigent, and treat with justice thehumble and poor: deliver the poor, and rend the indigent out of the handof the sinner.bAlso the seventy-first psalm, With righteousness shallhe judge the indigent of the people, and shall make safe the sons of thepoor. And in what follows, it refers to Christ: All the gentiles shallserve him.cNow David had power over the Jewish people only:so let no one think it was said with reference to David that hehad taken to himself the humble and those who were borne downby need and want. Because, he says, he hath delivered the indigentfrom the mighty: he shall spare the indigent and poor, and shall makesafe the souls of the poor, and shall redeem their souls from usury andinjustice, and honoured shall their name be in his sight.dAlso: Let thesinners be turned aside into hell, all the gentiles who forget God, because theindigent man shall not for ever be kept for oblivion, the patient abidingof poor men shall not for ever perish.eAlso, Who is like our God, whohath his dwelling on high, and hath regard for humble things in heavenand on earth: who lifteth up the indigent from the earth, and exalteth the

14. 1 Tertullian suggests that the beatitudes and the woes, after the mannerof the praetor's perpetual edict, are Christ's statement of the principles onwhich he will act when he comes to judge the world.

IV.14

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

325

poor out of the dunghill, that he may make him to sit with the princes ofthe people?f—meaning, in God's own kingdom. Also, further back,in Kingdoms, Hannah, the mother of Samuel, in the Spirit givesglory to God and says, He lifteth up the poor from the earth, the indigentalso, that he may make him to sit with the mighty ones of the people,evidently in his own kingdom, and upon thrones of glory,groyalthrones. And in Isaiah also how does he lash out against theoppressors of the needy: Ye then, what mean ye that ye set fire to myvineyard, and the spoil of the indigent is in your houses? Wherefore doye oppress my people, and shame the face of the indigent ?hAnd again,Woe to them that write down iniquity, for in writing they write downwickedness, avoiding the judgements of the indigent, and ravaging therights of the poor of my people.iThese judgements he also demandson behalf of orphans and widows, these too being in need ofconsolation: Do judgement for the orphan, and deal justly with thewidow, and come, let us be reconciled, saith the Lord.jWhosoever hasthat great affection which the Creator has for every rank ofhumble estate, his also will be the kingdom promised by Christ,whose affection all those already enjoy to whom the promise ismade. Even if you suppose the Creator's promises were earthly,while Christ's are heavenly, it is well enough that until now thereis no indication of heaven belonging to any other god but theGod to whom earth belongs: it is well enough that the Creatorhas made promises of even lesser things, because this makes iteasy for me to believe him in respect of greater things, rather thanone who has not previously on a foundation of lesser things builtup faith in his liberality. Blessed are they that hunger, for they shallbe filled. I should have been able to attach this clause to the onebefore, because they that hunger are precisely the same as thepoor and the indigent, except that the Creator had particularlydesigned this promise as preparatory work for that gospel whichin fact is his own: because by Isaiah he speaks thus of those,meaning the gentiles, whom he would call to him from the endof the earth: Behold swiftly, lightly, will they comek—swiftly becausethey are in haste, towards the end of the times, lightly becausethey are free of the burdens of the ancient law. They shall nothunger nor thirst—which means they will be filled, and a promiselike this is only made to such as are hungry and thirsty. And

IV.14

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

327

again, Behold they that serve me shall be filed, but ye shall be hungry:behold they that serve me shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty.lWe shallask ourselves whether even these contrasts are not preparatoryfor Christ. For the moment, in that he promises the hungry theywill be filled, he belongs to the Creator. Blessed are they that weep,for they shall laugh. Proceed with the statement of Isaiah: Beholdthey that serve me shall exult in joyfulness, but ye shall be put to shame:behold they that serve me shall be made glad, but ye shall cry aloud forsorrow of heart.mTake note of these contrasts also in Christ's words.Undoubtedly gladness and exultation in joyfulness are promisedto those who are in opposite circumstances, the sad, the sorrowful,and the distressed. In fact psalm one hundred and twenty-fivealso says, They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.nCertainly laughteris quite as characteristic of those who exult and are in joyfulness,as weeping is of those in sorrow and grief. Thus by his prophecy ofcauses for laughter and of weeping the Creator was the first tosay that those who mourn will laugh. Consequently, when hebegan his discourse with consolation to the poor and lowly, tothose who were hungry and in tears, <Christ> took immediatesteps to identify himself with that one of whom he had givenindications in Isaiah: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because hehath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor.o Blessed are the indigent,for theirs is the kingdom of heavenp—He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted.o Blessed are they that are hungry, for they shall be filled—pTocomfort those that mourn.o Blessed are they that weep, for they shall laughp—To give to them that mourn the glory of Sion, and instead of ashes thejoyfulness of anointing, and the garment of glory for the spirit of heaviness.oIf this is the ministry Christ fulfilled immediately on entering hiscourse, either he is the same who foretold that he would come forthis purpose, or else, if he who foretold it has not yet come, foolishlyperhaps, yet of necessity, I shall have to say, he must have givenhis commission to Marcion's Christ. Blessed shall ye be when menshall hate you and reproach you and shall cast out your name as evil forthe Son of man's sake. By this pronouncement he no doubt exhortsthem to endurance. What less did the Creator say by Isaiah?Fear ye not reproach from men, neither be ye brought low by their reviling.qWhat reproach, what reviling? That which was to come for theSon of man's sake. And who is this? The one who follows theCreator's pattern. How shall I prove it? Because of the hatred

IV.15

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

329

prophesied against him: as by Isaiah, addressing the Jews, theinstigators of hatred: For your sakes my name is blasphemed among thegentiles:rand in another place: Sanctify him who doth cut off hisown soul, who is held in scorn by the gentiles, the servants and the rulers.sFor if hatred was foretold against that Son of man who followsthe Creator's pattern, while the gospel testifies that the nameof Christians, which evidently is derived from Christ, will behated for the Son of man's sake, and this is Christ, it indicatesas the reason for that hatred the Son of man who was after theCreator's pattern, him against whom hatred was foretold. Andin fact, if he were not yet come, the hatred of the name, which istoday a present fact, could not have come into evidence before thePerson to whom the name belongs. For he is even now sanctifiedamong us, and does cut off his own soul by laying it down forour sake, and is held in scorn by the gentiles. Also one who hasexperienced human birth, he and no other must be that Son ofman for whose sake even our name is cast out as evil.

15. [Luke 6: 23-6.] In like manner, he says, did their fathers to theprophets. See this turncoat Christ, first the destroyer of the pro- phets, and next the vindicator of them: as their enemy destroyingthem, by converting their disciples to himself: as a friend, vindi- cating them, by casting reproach upon their persecutors. Now,in so far as vindication of the prophets would have been out ofcharacter with the Christ of Marcion who had come to destroythem, to that same extent it is in character with the Creator'sChrist to cast reproach upon the persecutors of those prophetswhom in all points he was fulfilling—at least because to blamethe sons for the fathers' sins is more in keeping with the Creatorthan it is with that god who does not even censure a man for hisown sins. But, you say, he was not necessarily acting in defenceof the prophets if it was his intention to insist on the iniquity ofthe Jews in not treating with kindness even their own prophets.Yes, but here there was no excuse for blaming the Jews for wrong- doing: they should rather have been praised and commended, ifthey took strong action against those to whose destruction afterall these ages your very good god has at last bestirred himself.But, I imagine, he is no longer perfectly good: at length he sharessomething of the Creator's character, and has ceased to be entirely

IV.15

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

331

Epicurus' god. For see, he betakes himself to cursing and showshimself to be one who is capable of offence and anger. For he saysWoe. So we have the question raised of the import of this word,with the suggestion that it implies not so much malediction asadmonition.1 But what is the difference in intention, when evenan admonition is not given without the spur of commination,especially when made more astringent by the word Woe? Alsoboth admonition and commination are in character with onewho is capable of being angry. For no one is going either by ad- monition or by commination to forbid a person to do something,unless he is going to inflict punishment if it is done. No one caninflict punishment, but one who is capable of anger. There areothers indeed who admit the word involves cursing, but will haveit that Christ uttered the word Woe not as proceeding strictlyfrom his own judgement, but because the word woe comes fromthe Creator, and he wished to set before them the Creator'sseverity, and so give greater commendation to his own tolerancepreviously in the beatitudes. As though this were not within theCreator's competence, in that he presents himself in both aspects,as the kind God and as the Judge, having given previous indica- tion of his kindness in the benedictions, afterwards to append hisseverity in the maledictions—the full extent of his moral law tobe built up in both directions, no less for men to seek after hisbenediction than for them to take precaution against his maledic- tion. For he had long ago set it down in that form: Behold I haveset before you blessing and cursinga—which was also an early indica- tion of this double aspect of the gospel. In any case what sort ofperson is that who for the sake of suggesting his own kindnessbegins by pointing the contrast of the Creator's sternness? A poorsort of commendation is this, which props itself up by the runningdown of someone else. But, you say, by pointing the contrast ofthe Creator's sternness he did establish the fact that he is one tobe feared. <Yes: but> if one to be feared, one rather to be obeyedthan disregarded, and Marcion's Christ begins now to give teach- ing on behalf of the Creator. Again, if that Woe which has therich in view is the Creator's, then it is not Christ who is angrywith the rich, but the Creator, and Christ sets his approvalon rich men's claims, that pride and glory, I mean, that devotionto the world and neglect of God, for which they deserve that Woe

15. 1 On blessing and cursing: Irenaeus, A.H. iv. xliv. 1-3.

IV.15

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

333

from the Creator. And surely this disapproval of the rich mustproceed from the same <Christ> who has just now expressedapproval of the indigent. Any man disapproves of the contraryof that of which he has expressed approval. So it follows that ifthat curse against the rich is ascribed to the Creator, the blessingof the indigent must also be claimed for him, and in that casethe whole work of Christ is the Creator's work. If the blessingmeant for the indigent is to be ascribed to Marcion's god, thecursing meant for the rich must be set down to him too, and inthat case he will be exactly like the Creator, a kind god and alsoa judge, and there will no longer be room for that distinction bywhich there come to be two gods, and, as the distinction isabolished, there will remain no other course than for the Creatorto be pronounced the only God there is. Therefore if Woe is aterm of malediction, or of some unusually severe reproof, and ifit is by Christ directed against the rich, I have to prove that theCreator too disapproves of the rich, as I have already provedthat he is a comforter of the indigent, so that in this sentimenttoo I may show that Christ is with the Creator. For if the Creatormade Solomon rich, this was because when given the opportunityof choosing he thought it better to ask for things which he knewwere pleasing to God—wisdom and understanding—and thuswas worthy to obtain the riches also to which he had not giventhe preference. And yet even to grant a man riches is not out ofcharacter with God, for both by these the rich obtain ease andcomfort, and with them are performed many works of justiceand charity. But the faults incidental to riches, the woes in thegospel impute these also to rich persons, Because, it says, ye havereceived your comfort—meaning, from your riches, because of thereputation they bring and the worldly benefits. And so in Deutero- nomy Moses says, Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast builtgreat houses, and thy sheep and thy oxen are multiplied, and thy silver andgold, thy heart be lifted up and thou forget the Lord thy God.bSo alsoagainst Hezekiah the king, when he was puffed up for his treasures'sake, and had boasted of them rather than of God in the presenceof the men who had come from Persia,2 <the Creator> makes anattack by Isaiah, Behold the days come, in which all things that arein thy house shall be taken away, and the things which thy fathers haveheaped together shall be removed to Babylon.cAnd by Jeremiah also

he said, Let not the rich man glory in his riches, but he that gloriethd—let him in fact glory in the Lord. So also he attacks the daughtersof Sion by Isaiah when they are haughty through luxury andabundance of riches, as he was also in another place to utterthreats against the high-born and the proud: Hell hath enlarged hissoul and opened his mouth, and the nobles and the great men and therich—here will be Christ's Woe over the rich—shall go down there,and a man shall be brought low—evidently one exalted by riches—and a mighty man shall be dishonourede—obviously one honoured forhis possessions' sake. And concerning these again: Behold the Lordof hosts shall shatter the overweening with strength, and the high onesshall be smitten down, and the haughty shall fall by the sword.fAndwho are these but the rich? For they have received their comfort,glory and honour, their high estate from their riches. To warnus away from these he says also in psalm forty-eight, Be not thouafraid, though a man be made rich, even though his glory be increased,because he shall take none of them when he dieth, neither shall his glorygo down <to the grave> with him.gAlso in psalm sixty-one, Desire notriches, and if they are lustrous, set not your heart upon them.hLastly, thatsame word woe is directed by Amos against rich men who aboundin delights: Woe, he says, to them that sleep on beds of ivory, andflow with delights upon their couches, who eat the kids out of the flocksof goats and the sucking calves out of the herds of cattle, who beat timeto the sound of instruments—they reckoned these as things thatabide, not as things that flee away—who drink their wine refined,and anoint themselves with the chief ointments.iTherefore even if Ihad done no more than show the Creator dissuading men fromriches, and not also condemning rich men in advance, and thatwith the same word that Christ also used, no one could denythat the threat added against the rich by that woe of Christ, camefrom the same authority from whom the dissuasion from theobjects themselves, the riches, had already issued. For a threat issomething added to dissuasion. He utters a woe also against thosewho are full, because they will be hungry; as also to those wholaugh now, for they shall mourn. With this correspond the thingsalready mentioned as set over against his benedictions by theCreator: Behold, they that serve me shall be filled, but ye shall be hungry—evidently because you have been filled: and behold, they that serve

IV.16

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

337

me shall rejoice, but ye shall be put to shamej—evidently, you willweep who now laugh. For as it says in the psalm, They that sowin tears shall reap in joy,kso also in the gospel, they that sow inlaughter, that is, because of joy, shall reap in tears. Long agodid the Creator set these things side by side: Christ, by not chang- ing them but only giving them emphasis, has made them new.Woe when men shall speak well of you. That is what their fathers usedto do to the false prophets. No less does the Creator, by Isaiah,censure those who seek after the blessing and praise of men: Omy people, they that call you blessed do lead you astray and disturb thepaths of your feet.lAnd in other terms he even forbids them to haveany confidence in a man, and consequently not in man's praise,as by Jeremiah, Cursed is the man who hath hope in a man.mFor hesays also in psalm one hundred and seventeen, It is better to trustin God than to put confidence in man, and it is better to hope in Godthan to hope in princes.nSo then everything that people try to ob- tain from man, the Creator has given judgement against, in- cluding their well-speaking. He it is who condemns their fathersno less for praising and blessing the false prophets, than forpersecuting and rejecting the true prophets: just as the insultsdone to the prophets could not have been acceptable to the Godof those prophets, even so the favours done to the false prophetscould have been displeasing only to the God of the true prophets.

16. [Luke 6: 27-31.] But, he says, to you I say who hear—provingthat this is a long-standing command of the Creator, Speak in theears of them that heara—Love your enemies, and bless them that hate you,and pray for them that speak evil of you. All this the Creator has en- closed in one sentence by Isaiah, Say to them that hate you, Ye areour brethren.bFor if we have to address as brethren those who areour enemies, who hate us and curse us and speak evil of us,evidently he who gave instructions for them to be reckoned asbrethren is the one who has given the command to bless thosethat hate us and pray for those who speak evil of us. AdmittedlyChrist teaches a new degree of forbearance, when he puts restrainton that retaliation for injury which the Creator permitted bydemanding an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth: for he onthe contrary orders us rather to offer the other cheek, and in

IV.16

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

339

addition to the coat to let go of the cloak also. Evidently Christwill have added this as supplementary, yet in agreement withthe Creator's rules. So we need an immediate decision on thisquestion, whether the rule of forbearance is contained in theCreator's teaching. When by Zechariah he gives the instruction,Let not any one of you remember his brother's malice,cthat includes hisneighbour. For again he says, Let not any one of you think over hisneighbour's malice.dHe who has charged them to forget the injuryhas even more than given them charge to bear with it. But againwhen he says, Vengeance is mine and I will avenge,ehe inculcatesforbearance, as that which stands in expectation of vengeance.So then, in so far as it is quite incredible that the demand of toothfor tooth and eye for eye in return for an injury should proceedfrom the same one who forbids not only retaliation, not onlyvengeance, but even the remembrance and recollection of injury,to that extent it becomes clear to us in what sense he decreed aneye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth—not so as to permita second injury of retaliation, seeing he had forbidden this byprohibiting vengeance, but so as to set restraint upon the first.This he had forbidden by the interposition of retaliation, so thatevery man, having regard to that permission for a second injury,might abstain from committing the first. For he is aware thatviolence is more readily restrained by the immediate applicationof retaliation than by the promise of future revenge. Both of thesehad to be provided for, to meet human nature and men's faith,so that the man who believed God might expect God to exactvengeance, while the man who was deficient in faith should haverespect for the laws of retaliation. This was the intention of thatlaw, but it was in difficulties through lack of understanding, untilChrist, as Lord both of the sabbath and of the law and of all hisFather's ordinances, both revealed <its purpose> and made itcapable <of comprehension> when he commanded the offeringeven of the other cheek: for by so doing he put an end to thosereprisals for injury which the law had intended to check byretaliation, reprisals which beyond doubt the prophecy had mani- festly brought under restraint when it forbade the remembranceof injury and referred vengeance back to God. Consequently,whatever addition Christ made, he caused no destruction of the

IV.16

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

341

Creator's rules: for the command he gave was not in oppositionbut in furtherance of them. So then if I look for his actual reasonfor enjoining forbearance, forbearance so full and complete, itcan only be convincing if it appertains to that Creator whopromises vengeance and presents himself as judge. Otherwise ifsuch a burden of forbearance, in not only not striking back buteven of presenting the other cheek, in not only not returning in- sults but even of kindly speaking, in not only not holding on toone's coat but even of letting go of one's cloak also, is imposedupon me by one who is not going to be my defender, in vain doeshe enjoin forbearance: for he sets before me no reward for <follow- ing> his injunction, I mean, no fruit of my endurance: and thisis the revenge which he ought to have left in my discretion if hehimself does not provide it, or else, if he was not leaving it to me,he ought to provide it for me: because it is in the interest of goodconduct, that injury should be avenged. For it is by fear of ven- geance that all iniquity is kept in check. But for that, if indiscrimi- nate liberty is accorded, iniquity will get the mastery, so as topluck out both eyes, and knock out all the teeth, because it isconvinced of impunity. But this is characteristic of that supremelygood god, who is kind and nothing more, to inflict injury upon for- bearance, to open the door to violence, to abstain from defendingthe righteous, and to leave the wicked unconstrained. Give toeveryone that asketh thee—evidently, to the man in need, or perhapsso much the more to the man in need, if it includes the man withabundance. So then to prevent any from being in need, you findthat in Deuteronomy there is imposed upon the giver the exampleof the Creator, who says, There shall be no needy person in thee, thatthe Lord thy God may surely bless theef—the giver, it means, who hascaused there to be no needy person. But there is more here. Forhis command is, to give to one who does not ask: Let there not be,he says, a needy person in thee, which means, without being asked,take care that there shall not be: by which he makes an evenstronger case for giving to the one who does ask. Again in whatfollows: But if there shall be one in need from among thy brethren, thoushall not turn away thy heart nor shut thy hand from thy brother who isin need: thou shalt surely open to him thy hand, and shall lend him asmuch as he is in want of.gNow a loan is not usually given except to

IV.16

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

343

one who asks for it. But about the loan, more hereafter. Now ifanyone wishes to argue that the Creator ordered gifts to be givento the brethren, but that Christ said they must be given to allwho ask, so that this is something new and different, I answerthat this will be one of those points in which the Creator's law isfound in Christ. For Christ has prescribed the same action to- wards all men, as the Creator did towards the brethren. Foralthough that kindness is greater which is exercised towardsstrangers, it takes no precedence of that which was previously adebt towards the people next door. For who is there that is ableto love strangers? But if the second degree of kindness, towardsstrangers, is the same as that first degree, towards one's neighbours,that second degree will have to belong to the same one to whomthe first belonged—much more easily than that the second degreeshould belong to one whose first was non-existent. So it was inaccordance with the course of nature that the Creator first taughtof kindness towards neighbours, intending afterwards to extendit towards strangers, and, according to the reckoning of his owndispensation, at first towards the Jews, and afterwards also to- wards every race of men. Consequently, so long as the mysteryremained within Israel, quite rightly he enjoined mercy towardsthe brethren alone: but when he had given to Christ the heathenfor an inheritance and the utmost parts of the earth for his posses- sion,h and when the fulfilment began of that which was spokenby Hosea, Not-my-people <shall be> My-people, and She that had notobtained mercy <shall be> She that hath obtained mercyi—the gentilenation, it means—from thenceforth Christ extended towards allmen the law of his Father's bounty, excluding none from hiscompassion as he excludes none from his vocation. And so alsoany further teaching he gave, this also he had received to add tohis inheritance of the heathen. And as ye would that men should doto you, even so do ye to them. In this precept of course the otherside of it is to be understood: And as ye would that men should notdo to you, neither do ye to them. If this precept was given by anew god, one formerly unknown, and even now not fully revealed,one who had previously given me no formative instruction bywhich I could know beforehand what I ought to wish for or notto wish for for myself, and so do for others what I wished to bedone to me, and abstain from doing what I did not wish to be

IV.16

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

345

done to me,—in that case he has left to my own judgement widepossibilities, in no way tying me down to any agreement of actsand wishes, so as to do to others what I would they should do tome, and not do to others what I would not they should do to me.For as he has given no definition of what it is my duty to wish ornot to wish, either for myself or for others, so as to equate myaction with the law of my will, it follows that I am able not togrant to another that which I should wish another to grant to me,love, respect, consolation, protection, and benefits of that nature,and likewise to do also to another what I should wish anothernot to do to me, violence, insult, despite, deceit, and evils of thatkind. Indeed with such-like disagreement of their acts and theirwishes do the heathen conduct themselves who are as yet with- out instruction from God. For although the fact of good and evilis known by nature, yet God's rule of conduct is not: but whenthis is known, then at length agreement between will and actioncomes into operation as a result of faith, as under the fear of God.And so Marcion's god, now that he has recently been revealed,if indeed revealed, has not been in a position, in respect of thisprecept which we are considering, to publish a summary so con- cise and obscure and even yet of hidden meaning, or more easyof interpretation in accordance with my own preferential choice:for he had worked out no previous distinction in the matter. MyCreator however has both of old time and in every place pre- scribed that the needy, poor and orphans and widows, mustreceive protection, help, and refreshment: as by Isaiah, Break thybread for the indigent, and them that are without shelter bring thou intothy house, and if thou seest the naked, cover him:jalso by Ezekiel, con- cerning the just man, He will give his bread to the hungry, and willcover the naked.kAs early as that then he taught me well enoughto do to others what I would they should do to me. And likewiseby such pronouncements as Thou shall not kill, thou shall not com- mit adultery, thou shall not steal, thou shall not bear false witness,lhetaught me not to do to others the things I would not they shoulddo to me. Consequently the precept in the gospel will have comefrom him who of old time both prepared for it, and gave itdistinct expression, and set it under the arbitrement of his ownrule of conduct, and has now, as was his right, given it summaryprecision: because also in another context it was foretold that the

IV.17

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

347

Lord, which is Christ, would make concise speech upon theearth.m

17. [Luke 6: 34-49.] Next, on the matter of lending at interest,when he puts this question, And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope toreceive, what thank have ye?, run over what follows in Ezekiel onthe just man above-mentioned: He hath not, it says, put out hismoney at interest, and will not accept any increasea—meaning the excessamount due to interest, which is usury. It was first necessary forhim to suppress the return of interest on capital: by this meanshe would the more easily reconcile a man to the loss possiblyeven of the capital, when he had first been taught to remit theinterest on it. This is what I mean when I speak of the functionof the law in preparing for the gospel. So early as that by certainprimary precepts of a benevolence which had not yet learned toexpress itself clearly, was it gradually moulding the faith of somefew towards the full splendour of the Christian moral law. Forhe said before, And he will restore the pledge to the debtor,bevidently ifhe is insolvent, for would any man have had cause to write thatthe pledge must be restored to one who was solvent? It is putmuch more evidently in Deuteronomy: Thou shalt not sleep uponhis pledge, but thou shalt surely return to him his cloak about sunset, andhe will sleep upon his cloak.cClearer still before that: Thou shaltrelease every debt which thy neighbour oweth thee, and thou shalt notrequire it of thy brother, because the release of the Lord thy God hath beenproclaimed.dNow when he orders debt to be remitted, evidentlymeaning to one who is not going to repay—for it means stillmore when he forbids asking for it back, even though the man isgoing to pay—what does he mean, who has enjoined so great aloss on loans, except that we must lend even to one who has nointention of paying? And ye shall be the sons of God. An outrageousthing, if that god is going to make us sons to himself, who bydepriving us of matrimony has made it impossible for us to getsons for ourselves. How can he promote <us as> his own to thattitle which he has already abolished ? I cannot become the son ofa eunuch, especially when I have for Father the same one whomall things have. For just as he who is the Creator of the universeis the Father of all things, so he who is the creator of no substanceis but a eunuch. Even if the Creator had not conjoined the maleand the female, even if he had not granted offspring to all living

IV.17

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

349

creatures whatsoever, I was in this relation to him before therewas paradise, before there was sin, before the expulsion, beforethe two became one. At once was I made his son, immediatelyhe had formed me with his hands, when by his breath he gaveme movement. He it is who now for a second time gives me thename of son, while he brings me to birth not this time as soulbut as spirit. Because, he continues, he is kind unto the unthankful andevil. Well done, Marcion. Cleverly enough have you deprivedhim of rain and sunshine, that he might not be taken for theCreator. Yet who is this kind one, who has never been heard ofuntil now? How could he be kind when from him had proceededno good gifts of this sort of kindness with which <he had acted>who gave us the loan of sunshine and showers without expecta- tion of any return from the human race? This the Creator hasdone, who in return for all his liberality in works of nature evenuntil now bears with men while they pay their debt of thanks- giving more readily to idols than to himself. Truly kind is he,even with spiritual benefits: for the judgements of the Lord aresweeter than honey and the honeycomb.e He therefore who hashere put the ungrateful to rebuke, is he who had the right tofind them grateful, and his sunshine and showers you too, Mar- cion, have enjoyed without gratitude. Your god however had nocall to complain of the ungrateful, as he had made no provisionfor having them grateful. Again when he teaches of mercy andpity he says, Be ye merciful, even as your Father has had mercy upon you.This will be, Break thy bread for the hungry, and him that is withoutshelter bring into thy house, and if thou seest the naked cover him;fand,Judge for the fatherless and sustain the cause of the widow.gI see herethat ancient teaching, of him who would rather have mercy thansacrifice.h Or else, if it is now some other who has required mercybecause he also is merciful, how is it that in all these ages he hasnot been merciful to me? Judge not, that ye be not judged: condemnnot, that ye be not condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: give, andit shall be given to you: good measure, pressed down and running over,shall they give into your bosom. With the same measure that ye metewithal, it shall be measured to you again. As I see it, this sounds likereward called forth by deserts. From whom then comes the re- ward? If from men only, then his teaching is of human conductand human payment, and our obedience will be entirely givento men: if from the Creator, as from a judge and assessor of men's

IV.17

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

351

deserts, then it is to him that he directs our obedience, since withhim he has asserted that retribution is to be sought for or feared,in accordance as each of us has judged or condemned, or forgivenor meted out: if from that <god of Marcion's> then he too is nowbecome a judge—and this Marcion denies. So let the Marcionitesmake their choice, whether it is worth as much to fall away fromtheir master's rule, as to take it that Christ's teaching has in viewperhaps men, or else the Creator. But the blind leads the blind intothe ditch. Some few believe Marcion. But the disciple is not abovehis master. This ought not to have been forgotten by Apelles, firstMarcion's disciple, and afterwards his corrector. Let the hereticalso extract the beam out of his own eye, and then let him passcensure on the mote he thinks is in the Christian's eye. Moreovera good tree would not bring forth evil fruit, for neither wouldthe truth bring forth heresy: an evil tree would not bringforth good fruit, nor heresy the truth. For this reason Marcionhas not brought out anything good from the evil treasure ofCerdo, nor Apelles from that of Marcion. We shall find it muchmore appropriate to interpret of these persons the things whichChrist has made into an allegory referring to men, than to inter- pret them of two gods, as Marcion's offence puts it. I reckon thatit is not without justification that I continue to take my stand uponthe position by which I lay it down that nowhere in any sense isany different god revealed by Christ. I am surprised that in thisalone Marcion's adulterating hand lost its cunning. Except thateven robbers have their fears. No evil act is exempt from fear,because none is exempt from consciousness of itself. For all thattime then even the Jews knew no other god except him besideswhom they as yet knew no other, nor called upon any other godthan him whom alone they knew. If that is so, whom shall we taketo have asked, Why callest thou me Lord, Lord? Shall it be one whohad never been so called, because never until now revealed? orshall it be he who was always acknowledged as Lord, as havingbeen known from the beginning—in fact, the God of the Jews?Who else could have added, While ye do not what I say? Can it beone who only at that moment was attempting to teach them, orone who since the beginning had addressed to them the utterancesof both law and prophets? He too would have been in a positionto rebuke their disobedience, even if he had never elsewhere re- buked them. Yes, he who, before Christ came, had addressed them

IV.18

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

353

with, This people loveth me with their lips, but their heart is removed farfrom me,iwas now bringing up against them their ancient obsti- nacy. But for this, how out of character it was that a new god, anew Christ, the bringer of the light of this new and great religion,should pronounce obstinate and disobedient those of whom hecould have had no possible experience!

18. [Luke 7.] Likewise in his commendation of the centurion'sfaith, it is not likely that the statement that he had not found sogreat faith even in Israel should have been made by one to whomIsrael's faith was of no concern. Nor could it become his con- cern from then onwards, that a faith which was still immature—not to say non-existent—should receive from him either ap- probation or preference. But, <you object> why might he nothave used for an illustration faith in a different god? Because inthat case he would have said that such great faith had neverexisted in Israel, whereas what he did say was that he oughtto have found so great faith in Israel: for he had come in expecta- tion of finding it, being Israel's Godand Israel's Christ, and wouldnot have criticized it except as one who had the right to demandit and search for it. An opponent would have preferred to find itas he did find it, for he would have come rather with a view toweakening and destroying it, not so as to approve of it. He alsoraised to life the widow's dead son. Not a novel piece of evidence.The Creator's prophets had done this: how much more his Son.Until that very moment Christ had made no suggestion of anyother god—so much so that all who were there rendered gloryto the Creator, saying that A great prophet is risen up among us, and,God hath visited his people. Which god? Evidently he to whom thatpeople belonged, and by whom prophets had been sent. Nowsince those people glorified the Creator, and Christ who heardand knew it did not correct them when they honoured the Creatorfor this great testimony of a dead man raised to life, withoutdoubt we must either admit he was the messenger of no othergod than the God he did not object to them honouring onaccount of the benefits and miracles he himself had wrought: orwe must ask how it was that for all that time he tolerated theirerror, when his coming was for this precise purpose, of curing theirerror. But John is offended when he hears of Christ's miracles—because, <you suggest>, he belongs to the other <god>. I however

IV.18

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

335

shall first explain his reason for offence, so that I may the moreeasily show up the offence of the heretic. When the Lord of hostshimself was by the Word and Spirit of the Father working andpreaching upon earth, it was necessary that that apportionmentof the Holy Spirit which, after the manner of what was measuredout to the prophets, had in John had the function of preparingthe ways of the Lord, should now depart from John, having beendrawn back again into the Lord, as into its all-inclusive head- spring.1 And so John, being now an ordinary man, one of themultitude, was offended, as indeed a man might be: not becausehe was hoping for, or thinking of, a different Christ—for he hadno ground for such a hope—since he was teaching and doing no- thing new. No man can have doubts about one who he knows doesnot exist, and of whom therefore he entertains neither hopes norunderstanding. John however, both as Jew and as prophet, wasquite sure that no one is God except the Creator. Evidently it iseasier to think that his doubts were concerned with one whoseexistence he was convinced of, but was not sure whether this washe. So it is in this fear that John asks, Is it thou who earnest, or do welook for another?—a simple inquiry whether he whom he was look- ing for had come. Is it thou who contest—that is, who art to come:or do we look for another—that is, is there another whom we areexpecting, if thou art not he whose coming we expect? For hehad hopes—and all were thinking on those lines—arising out ofthe similarity of the evidences, that possibly for the meanwhilea prophet had been sent, and that it was a different one fromhim, a greater one, the Lord himself, whose coming was expected.And in fact that John's being offended consisted in this, that hewas not sure whether that same one had come whom they wereexpecting, that one whom they ought to have recognized by theworks prophesied of him, appears from the fact that the Lordreturned answer to John that it was by those same works thathe ought to be recognized. And since it is agreed that these wereprophesied with respect to the Creator's Christ—as I have provedin regard to each of them—it is worse than ridiculous that he

18. 1 That the ancient prophecy ceased, not only with John, but in Johnhimself, has become to Tertullian almost a commonplace: de orat. 1. 2; debapt. 10. 5; adv. Jud. 8. 14; de praesc. haer. 8. 3. In this he follows Justin, dial. 51,52 (on Jacob's blessing of Judah), 57 (on Isaiah 11: 1-3, where he says 'shallrest upon him' means 'shall come to an end with him', i.e. 'shall in his timereach their limit').

IV.18

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

357

should have sent back the answer that a Christ not the Creator'swas the interpretation of those signs by which he was the ratherurging his recognition as the Christ of the Creator. It is even moreridiculous if a Christ who is not John's bears witness to John,giving assurance that he is a prophet, yea even more, a sort ofangel, affirming that it is even written of him, Behold I send myangel before thy face, who shall prepare thy way:afor in kindly fashionhe recalls the prophecy to the former mind of John who is nowoffended, so that by thus assuring John his precursor that hehas really come he may extinguish the doubt involved in thatquestion, Is it thou who earnest, or do we look for another? For as theprecursor had now completed his task, and the Lord's way wasprepared, he himself must be understood to be the one for whomthe precursor had done service. Greater indeed is he than all thatare born of women: but the reason why he is less than the leastin the kingdom of God is not that there is a kingdom of one ofthe gods in which every least person is greater than John, anda John of another god who is greater than all born of women.For whether it is that he speaks of some particular least personbecause of humility, or that he speaks of himself because he wastaken to be less than John, in that all men were pouring out intothe wilderness to John rather than to Christ—What went ye outinto the wilderness to see?—in either case it has reference to theCreator, first that it is his John who is greater than men born ofwomen, and again that it is either Christ or every least personwho is to be greater than John in that kingdom which no lessis the Creator's, and is even now greater than that great prophetbecause he has not been offended at Christ—for this it was thatmade John little. Concerning forgiveness of sins I have alreadyspoken. The story of that sinful woman will have this in point, thatwhen she kissed our Lord's feet, and watered them with her tears,and wiped them with her hair, and covered them with ointment,it was a true and actual body that she handled, and not anempty phantasm: and that, as might be expected with the Creator,a sinful woman's repentance won for her pardon, for he is wontto prefer it to sacrifice. Also, since the urge to repentance hadproceeded from faith, it was through repentance justified by faiththat she heard the words, Thy faith hath saved thee, from him whohad already declared by Habakkuk, The just shall live by reason ofhis faith.b

IV.19

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

359

19. [Luke 8: 1-21.] That certain wealthy women accompaniedChrist, and ministered to him of their possessions, and amongthem the wife of the king's steward, is taken from prophecy. Forthese it was whom he called to him through Isaiah: Ye wealthywomen, arise and hear my voice, showing them to be disciples first,and afterwards workers and assistants: ye daughters in hope, hearmy words: remember the day of the year, with labour in hope, the labourwith which they followed him, and ministered to him because ofhope. No less concerning parables, let it once for all suffice tohave proved that this species of discourse was promised by theCreator. But next, that pronouncement of the Creator to thepeople, With the ear ye shall hear, and shall not hear,ahas frequentlygiven Christ occasion to insist, He that hath ears, let him hear—not as though through opposition Christ was giving back thehearing which the Creator had taken away from them, butbecause rebuke had to be followed by exhortation. First, With theear ye shall hear and shall not hear: afterwards, He that hath ears, lethim hear. Those who had ears were themselves responsible fortheir not hearing: though he was showing them that ears of theheart are necessary, and it was with these that the Creator hadsaid that they would not hear. And so through Christ he adds,Take heed how ye hear, and do not hear, because they heard withthe ear and not with the heart. If you attach its proper meaningto this admonition, according to the mind of him who was exhort- ing them to hear, even when he said Take heed how ye hear, he wasissuing a threat to those who were not prepared to hear. Lookhow your god is making a threat—so very kind that he neitherjudges nor is angry. My point is proved by the sentence nextfollowing: To him that hath, shall be given: but from him that hath notshall be taken away even that which he thinketh he hath. What is it willbe given? Increase of his faith, or even understanding, or perhapssalvation itself. What is it will be taken away? Evidently thatwhich will be given. By whom will it be given and taken away?If it is to be taken away by the Creator, by him also it will begiven. If it is to be given by Marcion's god, by him also it willbe taken away. Yet on whichever reckoning he threatens to takeit away, it will not come from that god who is unable to threatenbecause he is unable to be angry. Also I wonder how one can talkabout a lamp never being hidden, who through all those longages had hidden himself, a greater and more essential light: and

IV.19

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

361

how he can promise that all things secret shall be made manifest,when he is all the while keeping his god in darkness, waiting Isuppose for Marcion to be born. We come now to the standingargument of all those who bring into controversy our Lord'snativity.1 He himself, they say, affirms that he has not been bornwhen he says, Who is my mother and who are my brethren? In thisway heretics are always, by their theories, wresting plain andsimple expressions in any direction they please, or else, on sup- position of simplicity, giving a general meaning to expressionsbased on special conditions and particular reasons, as on thepresent occasion. We on the contrary affirm, first, that therecould have been no report brought to him that his mother andhis brethren stood without, desiring to see him, if he had had nomother or brethren, and if he who brought the message had notknown who they were, either by previous acquaintance or byhaving then and there been informed, either when they askedto see him or when they themselves sent the messenger. To thisfirst submission of ours our adversaries' usual answer is, Whatthen if the message was brought with the purpose of temptinghim? But the scripture does not say so, though its custom is toindicate when anything is done for temptation's sake—Behold adoctor of the law stood up, tempting him,band in that question abouttribute-money, And there came to him pharisees, tempting himc—andconsequently, where it makes no mention of temptation, it doesnot admit of its being interpreted as temptation. For all that,though I have no need to, I demand the reasons for such tempta- tion, in what respect they can have tempted him by the mentionof his mother and his brethren. If because they wished to knowwhether he had been born, or not—had there ever been any doubtof this, which they could resolve by means of that temptation?Yet who could have any doubt of the birth of one who he sawWas a man, whom he had heard declare himself the Son of man,who in consideration of all his human attributes they hesitatedto believe was God, or the Son of God? They found it easier toesteem him a prophet, some great one no doubt, but one in anycase who had been born. Even if there had been reason to tempthim by investigating his nativity, any other means would have

19. 1 Cf. de carne Christi 7, in controversy with Apelles. The question, 'Who ismy mother and my brethren?', not recorded by St. Luke, was taken over byMarcion from Matt. 12: 48 and Mark 3: 33.

IV.19

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

363

been more in keeping with such temptation than the mentionof those relations whom, in spite of having been born, he mightby that time have lost. Tell me, does everybody who has beenborn, have a mother still living? Does everybody who has beenborn, have brothers born to him as well? Is it not more likelythat people have their fathers living or their sisters, or even noone? Also it is well known that a census had just been taken inJudaea by Sentius Saturninus, and they might have inquired ofhis ancestry in those records.2 Thus in no respect has this sug- gestion of temptation stood up to examination, and it really washis mother and his brethren who stood without. It remains forme to ask what he had in mind when in some figurative mannerhe used the words, Who is my mother, or my brethren?, giving theimpression of denying both relationship and nativity—yetarising from the requirements of the situation and conditionalupon a reasonable explanation. It was that he was rightly dis- pleased that while strangers were within, intent upon his words,such near relations stood without, and what is more, sought todistract him from his appointed work. This was not so much adenial as a disavowal. And consequently, after his first remark,Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?, he added, Those only whohear my words and do them, thus transferring those titles of relation- ship to others, whom he should judge more closely related to himby their faith. Now no one makes a transference except fromone already in possession of that which is transferred. If then hemade to be his mother and brethren those who were not, in whatsense did he deny those who were? Evidently on conditions oftheir own deserving, not from denial of those close relations, givingin himself an example of his own teaching, that he who shouldput father or mother or brethren before the word of God wasnot a worthy disciple.d For the rest, the admission that they werehis mother and his brethren was even more clearly expressed bythis refusal to acknowledge them. By adopting others he confirmedthose whom through disfavour he denied, and the substitutionwas not of others more real but of others more worthy. In anycase it is not surprising that he preferred faith to blood-relationship,when <as Marcion will have it> he had no blood.

20. [Luke 8: 25-48.] Now who is this, that commands even thewinds and the sea? Some new ruler, perhaps, and impropriatorof the elements which have belonged to that Creator who is nowsubdued and dispossessed? By no means. Those elements hadrecognized their author, even as they had of old been accustomedto obey his servants. Look at Exodus, Marcion: see how Moses'rod gave orders to the Red Sea, a much greater matter than allthe ponds in Judaea, so that it was split to the bottom, was madefirm with equal amazement on either side, and by a route throughits midst let the people pass through on dry feet: and again atthe command of the same rod its nature returned, and the flowingtogether of the waters overwhelmed the Egyptian host. To thatWork also the south winds gave service.a Read how for the divid- ing off of one tribe by lot there was a sword at their crossing ofJordan,b after Joshua had clearly enjoined its current from aboveand below to stand still as the prophets passed over. What sayyou to this? If Christ belongs to you, you will not find him morepowerful than these servants of the Creator. Now I might havewen content with these instances, but that a prophecy of thisactual walking upon the sea had anticipated Christ's action.When he crosses the sea, there is a psalm being fulfilled, TheLord is upon many waters.cWhen he scatters its waves, Habakkukis being fulfilled, Scattering the waters by his passage.dWhen at hisrebuke the sea is stricken down, Nahum too is made complete,He rebuketh the sea and maketh it dry,ealong with those winds, ofcourse, by which it was disquieted. By what evidence will youhave me prove that Christ is mine? By the Creator's acts or byhis prophets? Come now, you who suppose the prophecy was ofa militant and armed warrior, not as a figure or an allegory offine who on a spiritual battlefield, with spiritual armour, was towage spiritual war against spiritual enemies: when you find intine single man a multitude of devils, who call themselves a legion,evidently a spiritual one, learn from this that Christ too must beunderstood to be he who in spiritual armour and as a spiritualwarrior is an overthrower of spiritual enemies, and so it was hewho was also to contend with the legion of demons: and thus itwill become evident that of this war the psalm declared, The Lordstrong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.fFor when he did battlewith the last enemy, which is death,g he triumphed by the trophyof the cross. But of which god did the legion testify that Jesus is

IV.20

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

367

the son? Surely, of that God whose torments and abyss they al- ready knew and feared. For it does not seem that they can stillhave been unaware of what the power of that new and un- known god was accomplishing on earth, since it is not at alllikely that the Creator was unaware of it. For even if he had atone time been unaware of another god over above himself, nowat least he had become aware of him in action beneath theCreator's own heaven: and what their Lord had become awareof must by now have become known to his whole body of servantsin that same world and within that same circuit of heaven inwhich that extraneous divinity was engaged. In as much thenas both the Creator and everything that was his, would haveknown of that extraneous divinity if it had existed, by so much,seeing it did not exist, the demons were aware of no other Christthan the Christ of their own God. They do not request of thatother god that which they must have remembered they had torequest of the Creator, to be excused the Creator's abyss. Thusthey obtained their request. And how did they earn it? Was itbecause they had lied, because they had made him out the sonof the cruel God? Yet who can this have been, who granteda boon to liars, and bore with his own traducers? No, it wasbecause they had not h'ed, because they had known him for theGod of the abyss, their own God, that in this way he gave assur- ance that he was he whom the demons had acknowledged himto be, Jesus the judge, the son of God the avenger. Next we ob- serve in Christ a trace of those pettinesses and infirmities of theCreator. For I too am content to attribute ignorance to him.Let me do so, to oppose the heretic. He is touched by the womanwith an issue of blood, and does not know by whom. Who touchedme? he asks. Even when the disciples suggest a reason he persistsin his expression of ignorance: Somebody hath touched me: and con- firms this by proof: For I have perceived that virtue is gone out of me.What says the heretic? Did Christ know who it was? Then whydid he speak as though in ignorance? Surely it was to elicit herconfession, and take proof of her fear. In this way he had informer time looked for Adam, as though in ignorance, Adamwhere art thou? You have also the Creator excused along withChrist, and Christ put into equality with the Creator. But thistoo, <you object>, as an opponent of the law: because the law setsa barrier against contact with a woman with an issue of blood,h

IV.20

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

369

for that very reason he was intent not merely to permit hertouching of him but even to grant her healing. Here is a god,kind not by his own nature but through opposition to another.And yet, if we find that the woman's faith had deserved it so,When he says, Thy faith hath saved thee, who are you, that youshould discover hostility to the law in that act which the Lordhimself indicates was performed as the reward of faith? But youwish to make out that the woman's faith was just this, that shehad held the law in contempt. Yet who can believe that a womanwith as yet no knowledge of any <second> god, the initiate as yetof no new law, should make a breach in that law to which shewas still bound? By what faith did she break it? Through belief
in which god? In contempt of which god? The Creator? Sureis that she touched him because of faith. If faith in the Creator,because she had no knowledge of another god, did she in anyrespect make a breach in his law? Her breaking of it, if she didbreak it, arose from faith in the Creator. Yet how can both thingsbe true, that she both broke the law, and broke it because ofthat faith for the sake of which she ought not to have broken it?I shall explain. Her faith was, in the first place, this by which shetrusted that her God preferred mercy even to sacrifice, by whichshe wasassured that that God was at work in Christ, by whichshe touched him, not as a holy man, nor as a prophet, who shewould know was because of his human substance capable ofdefilement, but as God himself, whom she had assumed to beincapable of pollution by any manner of uncleanness. In this wayshe was not in error in interpreting for herself that law whichindicated that those things contracted defilement which werecapable of defilement: but not God, who she was confident wasin Christ. And moreover she had this in mind, that the injunctionin the law is concerned with that ordinary and customary fluxof blood at menstruation or childbirth, which proceeds fromnatural functions—not such as proceeds from ill health. She how-ever had an issue caused by ill health, for which she knew shehad need not of any period of time, but of the aid of divine mercy.Thus she can be seen not to have broken into the law but to havemade a distinction. This will be a faith which also conferred under- standing: Unless ye have believed, it says, ye shall not understand.iChrist, while approving of the faith of this woman who believed

IV.21

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

371

in the Creator and no other, replied that he himself was the Godof that faith of which he approved. Nor shall I leave this unsaid:that when his garment is touched, and a garment is put upon abody, not on a phantasm, there is proof also that he had a body—not as though this were our present subject, but because it has abearing on our present inquiry. For if there had been no veritablebody, a phantasm, being an unsubstantial object, could not havecontracted defilement. If then because of his unsubstantial charac- ter he is incapable of defilement, why should he have wished <foran explanation>? If <he did this> as an enemy of the law, he wasbeing deceitful, for he was not really contracting pollution.

21. [Luke 9: 1-26.] He sends out the disciples to preach the king- dom of God. Has he indicated here at least, which God? Heforbids them to take for the journey anything for food or clothing.Who could have given this command, but he who feeds theravens and clothes the flowers of the field, who of old gave ordersthat the ox treading out the corn must have unmuzzled mouth,as licence to filch fodder from his labour—because the laboureris worthy of his hire? Let Marcion delete such matters, so longas their meaning is preserved. But when he tells them to shakeoff the dust from their feet against those who have given themno reception, this too he says must be done for a testimony. Nowno one makes testimony of a matter which is not proposed forjudgement: when he orders unkindness to be brought underattestation, he is holding out the threat of a judge. That it wasno new god that Christ commended was also made quite clearby people's general opinion, in that Herod was assured by somethat Christ Jesus was John, by others Elijah, by others some oneof the old prophets. Whichever of these he might have been, hewas certainly not raised up again so that after resurrection hemight preach some other god. He feeds the people in the wilder- ness, after his ancient custom. If there is not the same impressive-ness, then on this occasion he is inferior to the Creator, who notfor one day but for forty years, not with earthly provisions ofbread and fish, but with manna from heaven, prolonged the livesnot of about five thousand, but of six hundred thousand men. Yetin this respect it was the same impressiveness, that following theancient precedent he desired that that slender provision should notmerely suffice but have some to spare, So also at a time of famine

IV.21

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

373

in Elijah's day the last small provisions of the widow of Zarephathby the prophet's blessing continued abundant through all thetime of famine:a you have it in the third of Kingdoms. If youalso turn to the fourth, you will find the whole of this activity ofChrist in the case of that man of God to whom were brought tenloaves of barley: and when he had ordered them to be distributedto the people, and his servitor, comparing the number of thepeople and the smallness of the provision, had answered, What,should I set this before an hundred men ?, he replied, Give, and they shalleat, for thus saith the Lord, They shall eat, and shall leave remainders ...according to the word of the Lord.bEven in new things Christ is asof old. Peter, who had seen these doings and compared them withthe ancient things, perceived that they were not only events oftime past but were even then prophecies for the future: so thatwhen our Lord asked who they thought he was, and Peteranswered on behalf of them all, Thou art the Christ, he cannot haveSupposed him a novel Christ, but only the one he knew in thescriptures and was now observing in deeds. This <answer> hehimself confirms—even until now he is content with it: he con- firms it even when he enjoins silence. For if Peter was not in aposition to affirm that he was any other than the Creator's, andChrist himself gave orders that they were to tell no man of this,evidently he was unwilling for Peter's supposition to be publishedabroad. Quite so, you say: because that supposition was incorrect,and he did not wish a lie to be spread abroad. But it was anotherreason he gave for silence: that the Son of man must suffer manythings, and be rejected by the elders and scribes and priests, andbe slain, and after three days rise again. And since these things toowere prophesied of the Creator's Christ, as I shall fully explain intheir proper places, in this way too he proves himself to be thatone of whom they were prophesied. Certainly even if they hadnot been prophesied, the reason he gave for commanding silencewas not one which proved Peter mistaken: it was the call to under- go sufferings. Whosoever, he says, will save his life shall lose it, andwhosoever shall lose it for my sake, will save it. Assuredly it was theSon of man who pronounced this judgement. Do you too then,in company with the king of Babylon look into his burning fieryfurnace, and you will find there one like unto a son of manc—he was not yet actually that, not yet having experienced human

IV.21

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

375

birth—as early as that setting forth this course of action. He saves
the lives of the three brethren who agreed together to lose
them for God's sake, but has destroyed the lives of the Chaldeans
who preferred to keep them safe by worshipping the idol.
Where is that newness you speak of in a doctrine of which these
are ancient instances?—Indeed there is also a series of prophecies
both that there will be martyrdoms, and that they will receive
from God their reward. Behold, says Isaiah, how the righteousperisheth, and no man taketh it to heart, and righteous men are taken away,and no man considereth.dWhen does this more truly take place than
in the persecution of his saints?—Surely it is no simple <death>,
or one by the law of common nature, but that noble death in
fighting for the faith, in which he who loses his life for God's
sake preserves it: so that here at least you may see you have
a Judge, who rewards an evil gaining of life by the losing of
it, and a good loss of life by its salvation. To me also he shows
himself a jealous God, who returns evil for evil: Whoso shall beashamed of me, he says, of him will I also be ashamed. Yet ground for
shame does not attach to any Christ but mine, whose whole life
was so much a matter of shame that it lies exposed even to the
taunts of heretics, who with all the malice they are capable of
complain endlessly of nothing but the squalor of his birth and
babyhood, and even the indignity of his flesh. But that Christ ofyours, what fear is there of anyone being ashamed of him, whenhe himself no cause for it? He was not conceived in a womb—
not even a virgin's, though a virgin is a woman, and even though
there were no male seed, yet by the law of corporal substance <hewould have been formed> from a woman's blood—he was neverreckoned to be flesh before he was formed, nor was he called a
foetus after his shape was complete; he was not set free after tenmonths' torment, nor was he spilt upon the ground through thesewer of a body, with a sudden attack of pains along with theuncleanness of all those months, nor did he greet the daylightwith tears or suffer his first wound at the severing of his cord: hewas not washed with balm, nor treated with salt and honey, nor
did swaddling-clothes become his first winding-sheet: no questionthereafter of his wallowing in uncleanness in a mother's lap, ofhis nuzzling at her breasts, of a long infancy, a tardy boyhood,
of waiting for manhood: no, he was brought to birth out of heaven,

IV.22

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

377

at once full-grown, at once complete, Christ with no delay, spiritand power and god—and nothing more. So then, as he was notrue <man>, for <his manhood> was not visible, likewise he hadnothing for men to be ashamed of in the curse of the cross, for hewas devoid of the truth of it, being devoid of body. So it cannothave been your Christ who said, Whoso shall be ashamed of me. Itmust have been our Christ who used this expression, he who wasmade by the Father a little lower than the angels;e a worm and noman, a very scorn of men and the outcast of the people;f becauseso it pleased him, that by his bruise we should be healed,g and inhis dishonour should our salvation stand firm. So with good causedid he bring himself low on behalf of man whom he had made,on behalf of his own, not another's, image and similitude: so thatas man had not been ashamed when worshipping stone and stock,he might with equal courage not be ashamed of Christ, and thusby the shamelessness of faith might make satisfaction to God forthe shamelessness of idolatry. Which of all this applies to yourChrist, Marcion, as a thing deserving of shame? Clearly, of yourselfhe should be ashamed, for your having invented him.

22. [Luke 9: 28-36.] This in particular you have reason to beashamed of, that when he withdraws into the mountain you per-mit him to be seen in the company of Moses and Elijah, thoughhe had come as their overthrower. This you suggest was the in-tended meaning of that voice from heaven, This is my beloved Son,hear him—that is, not Moses and Elijah any longer. In that casethe voice was sufficient, without putting Moses and Elijah ondisplay, since by stating clearly whom they must hear he wouldhave forbidden their hearing any others whatsoever. Or elseperhaps he allowed their hearing Isaiah and Jeremiah, if theprohibition applied only to those in actual view. As things are,even if their presence was essential, they need not just for thatreason have been revealed in conversation, which is an indicationof companionship, nor as sharing in his glory, which is an instanceof his condescension and grace; but in some sort of squalor, oreven in the Creator's darkness which he had been sent to disperse;certainly far removed from the glory of that Christ who was in-tending to cut off from his own gospel their speeches and eventheir writings. Is this the way he shows they are strangers tohim, by having them with him? Is this the way he teaches us to

IV.22

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

379

repudiate them, by linking them with himself? Is this the wayhe overthrows them, by arraying them in his own brightness?What more could their own Christ have done? I suppose, byway of perversity he could have given them the appearance whichMarcion's Christ ought to have given them—or else have hadwith him any you like, except his own prophets. But the Creator'sChrist, what should he rather do than bring into evidence alongwith himself those who had told of him beforehand? than beseen in company with those by whom he had been seen in revela- tions? than speak with those who had spoken of him? thanshare his glory with those by whom he was named the Lord ofGlory, with those officers of his, one of whom had of old been theinformer of his people, the other afterwards to be its reformer,the one the beginner of the Old Testament, the other the finisherof the New?1 So it is with good reason that Peter also, because oftheir inseparable connection with him, recognizes who his Christ'scompanions are, and offers the suggestion, It is good for us to behere—good to be, evidently, where Moses and Elijah are—andlet us make here three tabernacles, one for thee and one for Moses and onefor Elijah, but not knowing what he said. How 'not knowing' ? Wasit by a mere mistake? or was it for the reason by which we, inour argument for the new prophecy, claim that ecstasy or beingbeside oneself is a concomitant of grace?2 For when a man is inthe spirit, especially when he has sight of the glory of God, orwhen God is speaking by him, he must of necessity fall out ofhis senses, because in fact he is overshadowed by the power ofGod—on which there is disagreement between us and the naturalmen. Meanwhile it is easy to prove that Peter was beside himself.For how could he have known who Moses and Elijah were, exceptin the spirit—for the Jewish people could have had no picturesor statues of them, since the law also forbids similitudes—how,unless because he had seen them in spirit? And so it was notpossible for him to know what he had said when in the spirit,and not in his <natural> senses. Otherwise, if 'he did not know'means that he was mistaken in thinking that this was the Christof Moses and Elijah,—consequently it is already evident that

22. 1 On the expected return of Elijah, along with Enoch, to inaugurate thenew covenant, de anima 35 and 50, and Irenaeus, A.H. v. v. 1.2 For the suggestion that St. Peter, 'not knowing what he was saying', wasin an ecstasy, cf. adv. Prax. 15.

IV.22

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

381

a little earlier, when Peter was asked by Christ whom they con- sidered him to be, his answer Thou art the Christ, meant 'theCreator's Christ': because if he had then been aware that hebelonged to that other god, he would not have made a mistakehere either. But if he was mistaken here because mistaken pre- viously, in that case be assured that until that very day no newdeity had been revealed by Christ, and even until then Peter hadnot been in error, seeing that even until then Christ made nosuch revelation: and that all that time Christ could not be sup- posed to belong to any other than the Creator, to whose wholecourse of action he has here also given expression. He takes withhim three from among the disciples as witnesses of the vision andthe words that are to be. This too belongs to the Creator: Inthree witnesses, he says, shall every word be established." He withdrawsinto a mountain: I recognize his normal place, for it was in amountain that both by vision and by his own voice the Creatorhad first instructed his ancient people. It was necessary that thenew covenant should receive attestation in a high place such asthe old covenant had been written in, and beneath the same cover-ing of a cloud—and no one can doubt that this was condensedout of the Creator's air, unless perhaps he had brought his ownclouds down thither, because he had himself forced a way throughthe Creator's heaven: or perhaps he only borrowed the Creator'sfog for his own use. Likewise even now the cloud was not silent,but there is the accustomed voice from heaven, and the Father'snew testimony concerning the Son. He who had said, in the firstpsalm, Thou art my Son, today have I begotten theeb—and of him also<he speaks> by Isaiah, Who is it that feareth God, and heareth thevoice of his Son?—so when he now declares him present, saying,This is my Son, there is at once understood, Whom I have promised.For if at one time he made a promise, and then afterwards says,This is, the use of the presenter's voice in pointing to the thingpromised belongs to him who formerly made the promise, not toone to whom answer couid be made, But who are you yourself,to say, This is my son, when you have no more made previousannouncement of him than you have given indication of your ownprevious existence? Listen then to him whom from the beginningthe Creator had commanded them to hear. He calls him a pro- phet, for as a prophet he was to be regarded by the people.A prophet, Moses says, shall God raise up unto you of your sons—by

IV.22

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

383

carnal origin, he means—ye shall hear him as though hearing me:and every one that heareth him not, his soul shall be cut off from among hispeople.dSo also Isaiah: Who is there among you that feareth God?Let him hear the voice of his Son.eThis voice the Father himselfwould some time commend, for it says, Establishing the words ofhis Son,fby saying, This is my beloved Son, hear him. So that eventhough there has been a transference made of this hearing fromMoses and from Elijah to Christ, this is not as from one god toanother god, nor to a different Christ, but by the Creator to hisown Christ, in accordance with the demise of the old covenantand the succession of the new: Not a delegate, says Isaiah, nor amessenger, but God himself shall save them,gnow in his own personpreaching, and fulfilling the law and the prophets. So the Fatherhas put into the Son's charge the new disciples, by first displayingMoses and Elijah along with him in his excellence of glory, andthus granting them release, as having at length fully dischargedtheir office and dignity—so that for Marcion's benefit confirma- tion might be given of this very fact, that there is even a sharingof Christ's glory with Moses and Elijah. We find also in Habakkukthe complete outline of this vision, where the Spirit speaks in theperson of the apostles sometime to be, Lord, I have heard thy hearingand was afraid.hWhat hearing, other than of that voice fromheaven, This is my beloved Son, hear him? I considered thy worksand was astounded.hWhen else than when Peter saw his glory, andknew not what he said? In the midst of two living creatures, Moses andElijah, thou shalt be known.hOf these also Zechariah had a visionin the figure of the two olive trees and the two branches of theolive: for these are they of whom he heard it said, Two sons ofrichness stand by the Lord of the whole earth.iAnd once more, Habak- kuk again, His virtue covered the heavens, with that cloud, and hisglory will be as the light,jthe light with which even his garmentsglistered. And if we call to mind the promise to Moses, here itwill be seen fulfilled. For when Moses asked to have sight of theLord, and said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, manifest thyselfto me, that I may knowledgeably see thee,kwhat he looked for was thataspect in which he was to live his human life, which as a prophethe was aware of—but God's face, he had already been told, noman shall see and live—and God answered, This word also which thouhast spoken, I will do it for thee. And again Moses said, Shew me thyglory: and the Lord answered, concerning the future, as before, I

IV.23

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

385

will go before <thee> in my glory, and what follows. And at the end,And thou shall see then my later parts, not meaning his loins or thecalves of his legs, but the glory he had asked to see, though it wasto be revealed to him in later times. In this glory he had promisedto be visible to him face to face, when he said to Aaron, And ifthere shall be a prophet among you, I shall be known to him in a vision,and shall speak to him in a vision, not as to Moses: to him I shall speakmouth to mouth, in full appearance, the full appearance of that man- hood which he was to take upon him, and not in an enigma.lForeven if Marcion has refused to have him shown conversing withthe Lord,3 but only standing there, even when standing he stoodmouth to mouth with him, and face to face, as it says, not outsideof him, looking towards the glory that was his, and of course in
full view. So at his departure from Christ he retained the light ofthat glory precisely as he did at his departure from the Creator:
asthen he dazzled the eyes of the children of Israel, so now hedazzles the eyes of blinded Marcion, who has failed to see howthis evidence tells against himself.

23. [Luke 9: 41-62.] I take upon me the character of Israel. LetMarcion's Christ stand and cry, O faithless generation, how longshall I be with you, how long shall I bear with you? He will at oncehave to listen to me when I say, Whosoever you are, you that areto come,1 first tell us who you are, from whom you come, andwhat rights you have over us. Until this moment all that youhave is the Creator's. Clearly, if you come from him, and areacting for him, we consent to the reproof. But if you come fromanother, I would have you tell us what of yours you have ever
entrusted to us which called for our belief: then you may upbraidour unbelief, though not even yourself have you ever revealed to
us. How long ago did you begin to act among us, to justify thatcomplaint of 'how long' ? In what respects have you borne withus, so as to charge us with your patience? Like Aesop's ass, assoon as you come out of the well you begin to bray. I take uponme next the cause of the disciples, upon whom he has comedown hard: O faithless nation, how long shall I be with you, how long

22. 3Marcion excised the second half of Luke 9:31 ('and spake of his decease').

23. 1'Eperxo&menoj, 'he that cometh' (cf. infra, 25. 7), was apparently taken upby
Marcion from the Baptist's question at Luke 7:19 and used as a catchwordwith reference to his Christ's second advent.

IV.23

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

387

shall I bear with you? This outburst of his I should with completejustice cause to recoil, in these terms: Whosoever you are, youthat are to come, first tell us who you are, from whom you come,and what rights you have over us. Until this moment, I imagine,you belong to the Creator, which is why we have followed you,because we recognized in you all those attributes that are his.So that if you come from him, we consent to your reproof. Butif you are acting for another, tell us, pray, what you have everentrusted to us of your own, which we ought by now to havebelieved: then may you rebuke our unbelief: until this verymoment you neglect to say who is your principal. But how longago was it you began to act among us, so as to count the timeagainst us? In what matters have you borne with us, so as toboast of your patience? An ass out of Aesop's well has latelyappeared among us, and already begins to bray. Would anyoneriot have made the injustice of the rebuke recoil in these terms, ifhe believed that <Christ> belonged to <a god> who had as yet noright to complain? Yet not even he would have come down hardUpon them, if he had not of old time held converse among themin the law and the prophets, and in mighty works and good deeds,and always found them unbelieving. But see, <you say>, Christloves the little ones, and teaches that all who ever wish to bethe greater, need to be as they; whereas the Creator sent bearsagainst some boys, to avenge Elisha the prophet for mockery hehad suffered from them. A fairly reckless antithesis, when it setstogether such diverse things, little children and boys, an age asyet innocent, and an age now capable of judgement, which knewhow to mock, not to say, blaspheme. So then, being a just God,he did not spare even boys when disrespectful, but demandedHonour to old age, and more particularly from the younger: butas a kind God he loves the little ones to such a degree that inEgypt he dealt well with the midwives who guarded the child-bearing of the Hebrews, which was in peril through Pharaoh'sedict.a So here too Christ's disposition agrees with the Creator's.But now for Marcion's god, who is opposed to matrimony: howcan he be taken for a lover of little ones? The whole reason forthese is matrimony. One who hates the seed must of necessitydetest its fruit. Yes, even more savage must he be held to be thanthe Egyptian king. Pharaoh indeed did not permit the infantsto be suckled: Marcion's god forbids them even to be born,

IV.23

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

389

depriving them even of those ten months' life in the womb. Yethow much easier it is to believe that affection for little ones shouldbe reckoned an attribute of him who by blessing matrimony forthe propagation of the human race, has by this blessing madepromise also of the fruit of matrimony, which is first concernedwith infancy. The Creator, at Elijah's demand, brings down aplague of fire upon that false prophet.b I take note of a judge'ssternness: and on the contrary of Christ's gentleness when re- proving the disciples as they call for the same punishment uponthat village of the Samaritans. Let the heretic also take note thatthis gentleness of Christ is promised by that same stern Judge:He shall not strive, it says, nor shall his voice be heard in the street:a bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench.cSuch a one was even less likely to burn men up. For even inReference to Elijah in his day, it says, The Lord was not in the firebut in a gentle spirit.dAnd next, why does this god, full of humankindness, not accept the person who thus offers himself to himas an inseparable companion? If because it was in pride or fromhypocrisy he had said, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest, itfollows that by judging that pride or hypocrisy ought to be re- flected, he showed himself a judge: and in fact he did bring con-demnation upon the man he refused, since he was not to attainto salvation. For just as he calls to salvation him whom he doesnot refuse, or even the one he himself invites, so he condemns todestruction the one he refuses. But when to the man who has madethe excuse of his father's burying he gives the answer, Let the deadbury their own dead, but do thou go and proclaim the kingdom of God, hehas given manifest confirmation to both of these Creator's laws:the one concerning the priesthood in Leviticus, which forbidsthe priests even to be present at their parents' obsequies—Uponevery soul departed, it says, the priest shall not enter in, even upon hisfather he shall not become defilede—and the one concerning <nazirite>vows in Numbers, for there too him who has vowed himself toGod he commands, among other things, not to enter in uponany soul departed, not even his father's or mother's or brother's:fand I suppose it was for the <nazirite> vow and for the priesthoodthat he intended this man whom he had begun to prepare forpreaching the kingdom of God. If that is not the case, he mustbe judged undutiful enough who without the intervention of anylegal cause gave orders that sons must neglect their fathers' burial.

IV.24

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

391

Also when he tells that third person not to look back, the man whowas thinking first to bid farewell to his own people, he is follow- ing out the Creator's ruling: he too had told those not to look back,whom he had rescued out of Sodom.g

24. [Luke 10: 1-20.] He chooses other seventy apostles also, overabove the twelve: for to what purpose twelve, after that numberof wells in Elim, without adding seventy, after that number ofpalm-trees?a Antitheses for the most part are produced by diver- sity of purposes, not of authorities, though he who has not keptin view the diversity of purposes has easily been led to take it fordiversity of authorities. When the children of Israel set out fromEgypt the Creator brought them forth laden with those spoils ofgold and silver vessels and clothing, as well as the dough in theirkneading-troughs, whereas Christ told his disciples to carry noteven a staff for their journey.b It was because the former werebeing moved out into the wilderness, but the latter were being sentinto cities. Consider the purposes in hand, and you will perceivethat there was one and the same authority, who arranged the pro- visioning of his people differently according to poverty or plenty,cutting it down when there would be abundance in the cities, pre- cisely as he gave full supply when there was to be scarcity in thewilderness. The former he forbade even to carry shoes: for he itwas under whom not even in the wilderness during all those yearsdid the Israelites wear out their shoes. Salute no man, he says, bythe way: look at Christ, your destroyer of the prophets, from whomhe copied this, among much else. When Elisha sent his servantGehazi on a journey to raise up again from death the son of theShunamite woman, I take it he gave him these instructions:Gird up thy loins and take my staff in hand, and go: whomsoever thoushall meet on the way, bless him not—that is, give him no salutation:and if any bless thee, give him no answerc—that is, do not return hisgreeting. For what is this blessing in the midst of journeys, exceptexchange of salutations upon meeting? So also our Lord toldthem into whatsoever house they entered, to speak peace to it.He follows the same precedent: for this too was the order Elishagave, that when he came into the Shunamite's house, he was tosay to her, Peace to thy husband, peace to thy son.dThese shall be the

IV.24

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

393

antitheses we prefer, such as bring Christ into line <with theCreator>, not such as make him separate. But the labourer isworthy of his hire: who has better right to say this than God theJudge? For this very act is an exercise of judgement, to pronouncethe labourer worthy of his hire. Every grant of reward is basedupon some exercise of judgement. So here too the Creator's lawreceives attestation, when he judges that even working oxen arelabourers worthy of reward: Thou shalt not, he says, muzzle the oxwhen it is threshing. Who is this so bountiful towards men? HeSurely who is also bountiful towards cattle. And as Christ alsodeclares that labourers are worthy of their hire, he sets in a goodlight that injunction of the Creator about taking away theEgyptians' vessels of gold and silver. For those who had builtfor the Egyptians houses and cities were certainly labourersworthy of their hire, and the instruction given them was not forrobbery but for recovering the equivalent of their wages, whichthey could not exact in any other way from those who were lordsover them. That the kingdom of God was neither a novelty nortill then unheard of he affirmed again in these terms, by orderingthe proclamation that it was come near. That which has some- time been far off, this it is that can be said to have come near:whereas if it had never existed in the past before coming near,that which had never been far off could not be said to have comenear. Everything novel and unknown is also unexpected. Every- thing which when it is announced is unexpected, then for thefirst time puts on a visible form and then first becomes present,past, or future. But for that, it can neither in the past have beendelayed, so long as there was no announcement of it, nor can itnave come near since the announcement of it began. He alsoadded that they were to say to those who had not received them,But know this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh. If this injunctionis not given by way of threat, it is given to no purpose at all: forwhat concern was it of those people that the kingdom was comingnigh, except that its approach is with judgement and for thesalvation of such as had welcomed its proclamation? In this way,if there can be no threatening without subsequent action, youhave in him that threatens a God who takes action, and a judgein either case. So also he says the dust must be shaken off against

IV.24

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

395

them, for a testimony—those bits of their land that cleave tothem, not to say all further communication. For if inhumanityand inhospitality are to receive from him no punishment, whydoes he begin with that attestation, which certainly involvesthreatenings? Moreover, seeing that in Deuteronomy the Creatortoo forbids Ammonites and Moabites to be received into thecongregation,e because when the people were come out of Egyptthey with inhumanity and inhospitality deprived them of pro- visions, from this it will be clear that the prohibition of inter- course found its way from him to Christ, with whom it takes theform, He that despiseth you despiseth me. This also the Creator saidto Moses, They have not despised thee but me.fFor Moses was anapostle, just as much as the apostles were prophets: the authorityof these two offices must be regarded as equal, as proceedingfrom one and the same Lord of both apostles and prophets. Whois it now will give the power of treading upon serpents and scor- pions? Is it to be the Lord of all living creatures, or he who isnot even the god of a single lizard? Well it is that the Creatorthrough Isaiah has promised this power even to very little chil- dren, to thrust their hand into the hole of the asp and into theden of the brood of the asps, and not be hurt at all. And in factwe know—without rejecting the literal meaning of scripture, fornot even wild beasts have had power to hurt when faith has beenthere—that figuratively by scorpions and serpents are indicatedthe spiritual hosts of wickedness, whose prince also is representedunder the name of snake and dragon and every most notoriousevil beast, in the scriptures of the Creator, who granted this powerto his previous Christ,1 as the ninetieth psalm says to him, Thoushalt go upon the asp and the basilisk, the lion and the dragon shalt thoutread underfoot.gSo also Isaiah: In that day shall the Lord draw forthhis sword, holy, great and strong—meaning, his Christ—against thatdragon, the great and crooked serpent, and shall slay him in that day.hAnd when Isaiah also says, It shall be called a pure way and a holyway, and the unclean thing shall not pass over it, and there shall not be therean impure way, but they that shall have been scattered shall walk thereinand shall not err, and there shall no longer be a lion there, nor shall any- thing from among the evil beasts go up into it, nor shall it be found there,isince that way indicates the faith by which we shall come to God,

24. 1Priori Christo suo: i.e. the real Christ, not the one Marcion says is still tocome to restore the Jewish kingdom.

IV.25

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

397

evidently it is to that same way, which is faith, that he promisesthe driving away of wild beasts and the subjection of them. Lastly,you could find, if you were to read what goes before, that thetimes of the promise are in agreement: Be strong, ye weak hands andye feeble knees: . . . then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and theears of the deaf shall hearken: then shall the lame man leap as an hart,and the tongue of the dumb shall be clear.jSo when he had told ofbenefits of healing, then it was that he put scorpions and serpentsunder subjection to his saints: and this was he who had firstreceived from his Father this authority so as to grant it also toothers, and now made it manifest in the order the prophecy hadforetold.

25. [Luke 10: 21-8.] Can any be called upon as Lord of heaven,without being first shown to be the maker of it? For he says, Ithank thee, and give praise, O Lord of heaven, because those things whichwere hidden from the wise and prudent, thou hast revealed unto babes.What things? and whose things? and by whom hidden? and bywhom revealed? If by Marcion's god they have been hidden andrevealed—since he had never provided anything in which thingscould have been hidden, neither prophecies nor parables norvisions, nor any evidences of events or words or names adumbratedin allegories or figures of speech or the clouds of enigma, but hadhidden even his own greatness, and was only then in process ofrevealing it through Christ, this is unfair enough. What sin hadthe wise and prudent committed that there should be hidden fromthem that god whom their wisdom and prudence had not beensufficient to enable them to know? No way had been providedby any works that told of him, no footprints even, by which wisemen and prudent might have been guided to him. And yet evenif they had in some respect been at fault regarding a god unknown,suppose him just now become known, yet there was no reasonfor them to find him a jealous god, for he is introduced as ofopposite character to the Creator. Consequently, seeing he hadmade no provision of materials in which he could have hiddensomething, nor had been dealing with offenders from whom heought to have hidden it, nor had the right to hide things even ifhe had been dealing with such offenders, it follows that he cannever be the revealer of things, because he has never been the

IV.25

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

399

hider of them, and in that case is neither the lord of heaven northe father of Christ: but rather he is, who satisfies all theseconditions. For he has hidden things by first setting forth a docu- ment of prophetic obscurity, such as faith might earn the rightto understand—for Unless ye believe, ye shall not understanda—andcounted the wise and prudent guilty because, when God couldhave been known of from all those mighty works,b they neglectedto seek after him or even vainly philosophized against him,providing the heretics with devices: and so at long last he is ajealous God. And in fact, this that Christ thanks God for, helong ago preached of by Isaiah: Iwill destroy the wisdom of the wise,and will hide the prudence of the prudent.cIn another place too heindicates that he has both hidden things, and will reveal them,And I will give them the hidden treasures, and will open for them <treasuries>invisible.dAnd again, Who else shall frustrate the signs of the ventri- loquists, and their divinations out of the heart, turning the wise men back- wards and making their cogitations foolish ?eAlso, if he has appointedhis Christ a giver of light to the gentiles, Ihave set thee for a lightof the gentilesf—and these we understand under the name of 'babes',for formerly they were small in understanding, and infants bylack of prudence, but now also are little by the humility of faith—we shall find it easier to believe that the same God has also byChrist revealed things to babes, who aforetime kept them hidden,and promised that by Christ there would be a revelation. Else, ifit is Marcion's god who has laid open those things which formerlywere kept hidden by the Creator, in that case he has done serviceto the Creator by explaining his concerns. But, you object, thiswas for his undoing, so as to bring them to light. In that case itwas his duty to bring them to light for those from whom theCreator kept them hidden, the wise and prudent. For if he wasdoing this from kindness, knowledge needed to be granted to thoseto whom it had been denied, not to those babes from whom theCreator had withheld nothing. And yet even at this point, Isuppose, we prove that in Christ there is to be seen the buildingup of the law and the prophets, and not the pulling down of them.He says all things are delivered to him by his Father. You canbelieve this, if Christ belongs to the Creator to whom all thingsbelong, because the Creator has not delivered all things to theSon as to one less than himself: for by the Son, who is his ownWord, he created them all. But if Christ is 'he that doth come',

IV.25

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

401

what are those 'all things' that are delivered to him by the Father?The Creator's things? Then those are good things which theFather has delivered to the Son, and good too is that Creatorwhose 'all things' are good, and that other one is not good whohas broken in upon another's goods so as to deliver them to hisson. If he teaches men to keep their hands off what is another's,he is certainly in extreme poverty in having nothing to enricha son with except what is another's. Or, if nothing of the Creator'shas been delivered to him by his father, by what right does helay claim to the Creator's man? Or else, if it is only man who hasbeen delivered to him, then man is not 'all things'. But the scrip- ture says that delivery of all things has been made to the Son.Also, if you are going to interpret 'all things' as 'all races of men',meaning all the gentiles, these too it is the Creator's prerogativeto have delivered to his Son: Iwill give thee the nations for thineinheritance, and the bounds of the earth for thy possession.gOr again, ifyour god has some few things of his own, so as to deliver them allto his son at the same tune as the Creator's man, out of all thesepoint out one single thing, for a pledge, for a sample: otherwiseI shall with as complete justification refuse to believe that 'allthings' belong to him to whom I do not see anything belonging,as with good cause I shall believe that even the things I do notsee, belong to him whose are the whole world of things which Ido see. But, No man knoweth who the Father is, but the Son, and whothe Son is, but the Father, and he to whomsoever the Son shall reveal him.And thus it was an unknown god whom Christ preached. Fromthis sentence other heretics1 too take for themselves support,objecting that the Creator was known to all men, to Israel be- cause they were his particular friends, to the gentiles by the lawof nature. Yet how is it that the Creator himself testifies that evenIsrael does not know him? But Israel doth not know me, my peoplehath not understood me.hNor do the gentiles: For behold, he says, noman, even from the gentiles.iFor which reason he has reckoned thema drop in a bucket, and has deserted Sion like a watch-towerin a vineyard.j See then whether there be confirmation of theprophetic voice which rebukes that human ignorance towardsGod which has extended even to the Son. For his reason for

25. 1 The 'other heretics' will be those of the gnostic sects in general, who all ofthem postulated a god unknown and unknowable, whom their Christ toldthem of, without making him known.

IV.25

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

403

inserting the statement that the Father is known by that man towhom the Son has revealed him, is that it was he himself whowas proclaimed as set by the Father as a light of the gentiles, andthat they were to receive light concerning God, the God of Israel,and this by virtue of a fuller acknowledgement of God. So then,evidences which are capable of applying to the Creator can neverserve as testimony to another god on the ground that those whichdo not apply to the Creator can serve for testimony to anothergod. If you look at the words which follow—Blessed are the eyesthat see the things which ye see: for I tell you that the prophets have notseen the things that ye see—they follow on from the previous thought,that so true is it that no man has known God as men should,that not even the prophets had seen the things which becamevisible under Christ. For if he had not been my Christ he wouldnot at this point have put in evidence any mention of the pro- phets: for what wonder was it that they had not seen the evidencesof an unknown god, one revealed after all those ages? Also wherecould have been the felicity of those who were then seeing thingswhich those others with good cause had not been able to see, inthat they had not obtained the actual presence of things whichthey had never even preached of, except that those who had thepower to see those effects of the God who was no less their God,things they had also preached of, had for all that never seen them?This then must have been the felicity of those who were seeingthings which others had only preached of. In short we shall prove,have already proved, that in Christ those things have been seenwhich had been prophesied of, yet had been hidden even fromthe prophets, and consequently were hidden also from the wiseand prudent of the world. In the gospel of truth a doctor of thelaw approaches Christ with the question, What shall I do to obtaineternal life? In the heretic's gospel is written only 'life', withoutmention of 'eternal', so that the doctor may have the appearanceof asking for advice about that life, that long life, which is promisedby the Creator in the law,k and the Lord may then seem to havegiven him an answer in terms of the law, Thou shall love the Lordthy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thystrength, because the question asked was about the law of life.But a doctor of the law certainly knew already on what termshe could obtain that legal life, and so would not have askedquestions about a life which he himself taught the rules of. But

IV.26

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

405

it was because the dead were already being raised up by Christ,that this man, raised up to the hope of eternal life by these in- stances of life restored, and fearing that this nobler hope mightentail something more in the way of conduct, therefore asked foradvice about eternal life and the obtaining of it. And so our Lord,being himself no other than he always was, introduces no othernew commandment, but only that which above all else pertainsto the whole of salvation, both to this life and the other, and setsbefore him the actual content of the law, that of loving the Lordhis God in all possible ways. And again, if the consultant's ques- tion and Christ's response were concerned with that long lifewhich is under the Creator's control, and not with eternal lifewhich is under the control of Marcion's god, how does he obtaineternal life? Certainly not on the same terms as the long life,because the difference in the rewards demands belief in a differenceof the work to be done. And therefore your Marcionite will notobtain eternal life as a result of loving your god, as he who lovesthe Creator will obtain a long life. And if our God is to be loved,who promises a long life, surely he is even more to be loved whooffers life eternal. It follows then that to the same God belongsboth this life and that, since the same rule of conduct must befollowed for both the one life and the other. What the Creatorenjoins, we need Christ to grant us that that be loved: for evenhere that general rule obtains, that it is easier to believe thatgreater things are to be found with him in whom smaller thingsset the precedent, than with him from whom there have been nosmaller things to prepare for faith concerning things greater. Itis by now no matter if our people have added 'eternal'. For meit is enough that that Christ of yours, who calls men not to along life but to eternal life, when asked for advice about the longlife which he was putting an end to, did not instead exhort theman to the eternal life which he was introducing. What, I askyou, would the Creator's Christ have done, if he who had giventhe man instruction on how to love the Creator, was not himselfthe Creator's? He would have said, I imagine, that the Creatormust not be loved.

26. [Luke 11: 1-28.] When he had been praying in a certainplace, to that higher-class father, looking up with eyes abovemeasure presumptuous and audacious towards the heaven of that

IV.26

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

407

Creator by whose sternness and savagery he could easily havebeen struck down by lightning and hail—even as at Jerusalemhe can have been crucified by him—one of his disciples approachedhim and said, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples,because, as you will have it, he thought a different god mustneeds be prayed to in different terms. Anyone who makes thisassumption first needs to prove that it was a different god thatwas brought to light by Christ. No man would have desired toknow how to pray, without having previously got to know whomhe was to pray to. If then that disciple already knew this, proveit. As however even to this moment you prove nothing of thekind, take it from me that what he asked for was a form of prayerto that Creator to whom also John's disciples addressed theirprayers. But seeing that John too had introduced a kind of neworder of prayer, for this reason Christ's disciple had good reasonto assume that he must make this request of him, so that theytoo might in their own Master's own appointed way make theirprayer to God—not a different god, but in a different manner.And again, <if it were a question of a different god>, neither wouldChrist have granted the disciple knowledge of the prayer with- out first telling him. who that god was. So it follows that the prayerwhich Christ taught was addressed to the same God whom thedisciple already knew. Again, take note of which God the termsof the prayer suggest. Whom shall I address as Father? Him whohas had nothing at all to do with the making of me, and fromwhom I in no sense take my origin, or him who by making meand fashioning me became my begetter? Whom shall I ask forthe Holy Spirit? Him by whom not even mundane spirit is con- veyed to me, or him who even makes his angels spirits, and whoseown Spirit at the beginning was borne upon the waters? Shall Ipray for the kingdom to come, of him who I have never beentold is the king of glory, or of him in whose hand are even thehearts of kings? Who is it will give me daily bread? Shall it behe who creates for me not so much as a grain of millet, or hewho provided his people even with the daily bread of the angelsfrom heaven? Who is it will forgive my sins? He who by notjudging does not retain them, or he who, if he does not forgive,will retain, that he may judge? Who is it will not let us be ledinto temptation? He whom the tempter has no call to be afraidof, or he who since the beginning of the world has held under

IV.26

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

409

condemnation the angel who became a tempter? Any man whoin such terms as these makes request to another god, and not theCreator, is not praying to him, but insulting him. Again, fromwhom shall I ask, that I may receive? On whose property shall Iseek, that I may find? At whose door shall I knock, that it maybe opened to me? Who is it has anything to give to him thatasks, except him whose are all things, whose also am I who amasking? What is there I have lost on the ground of that other god,that of him I should seek it and find it? If you say wisdom andprudence—these are things the Creator has hidden, and of himI shall seek for them. If you say salvation, and life, these too Ishall ask of the Creator. Nothing can be sought for in hope offinding, except in that place where it has lain hidden, and so maycome to light. So again I shall knock at no other door than thatfrom which I was driven away. Also, if receiving and finding andobtaining admission are the fruit of toil and persistence on thepart of the man who has asked and sought and knocked, take notethat these are duties enjoined and rewards promised by theCreator. That supremely good god of yours, coming without beingasked, to grant gifts to the man who is not his own, could nothave demanded of him either toil or persistence: for he wouldnot have been supremely good if he did not spontaneously giveto one who was not asking, make provision for one to find whowas not seeking, and open to one who was not knocking. TheCreator however was in a position to give such injunctions throughChrist, to the intent that because man by sinning had offendedhis own God, he might toil, and by persistence in asking mightreceive, by persistence in seeking might find, and by persistencein knocking obtain admission. With that in view, the parablethat comes before this represents that man who at night asks forbread, as a friend, not a stranger, knocking at the door of a friend,not of one unknown. Now man, even if he has offended, is morethe friend of the Creator than of Marcion's god: and so he knocksat the door of him to whom he has the right to come, whose doorhe can easily find, who he knows has the bread, who is now in bedwith those children whose birth was to his liking. Even that heknocks late at night—the tune belongs to the Creator: the latehour belongs to him. whose are all the ages, and the sunset of theages. At this new god's door no one would have knocked late atnight: he is only just waking up into daylight. It was the Creator

IV.26

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

411

who long ago shut up against the gentiles that door at which theJews long ago were knocking: he it is who rises and gives, if notyet as to a friend, at any rate not to an entire stranger, but, as itsays, because he is troublesome. But 'troublesome' is what a godlately arrived could not in so short a time have found any manto be. Acknowledge then as your Father the God you refer to asthe Creator. He it is who knows what his sons are in need of.When they asked for bread he gave them manna from heaven,and when they were in want of flesh-meat he sent out the quail-mother, not a serpent instead of a fish, nor a scorpion instead ofan egg. Now to abstain from giving evil instead of good will bewithin the competence of him to whom both belong: whereasMarcion's god, who does not possess a scorpion, was not in aposition to say he would abstain from giving a thing he did notpossess. Such a statement can be made by one who has a scor- pion but does not give it. Likewise also the Holy Spirit will begiven by him who has under his control the spirit which is notholy. When he had driven out the deaf devil—so as in this formof healing also to come into agreement with Isaiaha—and it hadbeen alleged that he cast out devils through Beelzebub, he asks,If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? Bythis question what else does he suggest than that he casts them outby the same means by which their sons do? The power, that is, ofthe Creator. For if you suppose the sentence must be read, If I castout devils by Beelzebub by whom your sons cast them out, as thoughhe were upbraiding them for casting out devils by Beelzebub,the preceding observation will tell against you, that Satan cannotbe divided against himself. Consequently neither did they cast themout by Beelzebub, but, as I have said, by the power of the Creator:and so as to cause this to be understood he adds, But if I by thefinger of God drive out devils, is not then the kingdom of God come nearagainst you? For in the case of Pharaoh those magicians whom hebrought into action against Moses referred to the power of theCreator as the finger of God.b The finger of God was this whichindicated something quite small, yet exceeding strong. In proofof this, Christ, who does not destroy the records of his own actsof long ago, but reminds men of them, spoke of God's poweras the finger of God, which they must understand was the powernot of any other god, but of him in whose scriptures it was so

IV.27

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

413

described. It follows also that the kingdom which had come nearwas of that God whose power was referred to as his finger. Withgood reason, therefore, with his parable of the strong man armed,whom another stronger than he overcame, did he connect theprince of the devils, whom he had previously called Beelzebuband Satan, indicating that by the finger of God he had been over- come, not that the Creator had been suppressed by some othergod. If this last had been the case, how could the Creator's king- dom still be standing, with its own boundaries and laws andfunctionaries, when, even if the world remained intact, it couldhave seemed that that stronger god of Marcion had overcomehim at least in this, that Marcionites did not continue to die, inaccordance with his law, dissolving into <his> earth, and learningoften even from the scorpion that the Creator has not been over- come? A woman from the multitude cries out, that blessed wasthe womb that had borne him, and the breasts which had givenhim suck. And the Lord answers, Yea rather, blessed are they thathear the word of God, and keep it: because even before this he hadrejected his mother and his brethren, because he prefers those whohear God and obey him. For not even on the present occasionwas his mother in attendance on him. It follows that neither onthe previous occasion did he deny having been born. So now,when he hears this once more, once more he transfers the blessed- ness away from his mother's womb and breasts and assigns it tothe disciples: he could not have transferred it away from hismother if he had had no mother.

27. [Luke 11: 29-52.] I propose in some other connection toprove that the faults the Marcionites allege against the Creatorare no faults at all: enough for the present that they are found inChrist. He too is changeable, variable, capricious, teaching onething, doing another: he tells them to give to everyone that asks,but himself gives no sign to those who do ask. All those long ageshe has hidden his light from men, though he says a lamp oughtnot to be put in a corner, but insists that it must be set on a lamp-stand so as to give light to all. He forbids the return of cursingfor cursing,a not to mention taking the initiative in it, yet hurlshis Woe against the pharisees and doctors of the law. Is there anyChrist so like my God as his own Christ? I have now more than

IV.27

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

415

once insisted that he could by no means have been stigmatized asa destroyer of the law, if it had been a different god he was pro- claiming. And so here, the pharisee who had invited him todinner was considering within himself why he had not washedbefore sitting down: that was the law, and Christ was upholdingthe God of the law. But Jesus gave him an explanation of thelaw, saying that though those people cleansed the outsides ofcup and vessel their inward parts were full of robbery and iniquity.Thus he made it clear that in God's sight cleanness of vessels isto be taken to mean cleanness of men: for in fact the phariseehad been discussing with himself about a man, not a cup, thatwas left unwashed. So he says, Ye make clean the outside of the cup,meaning the flesh, but ye do not make clean your inward parts,which is the soul: and he adds, Did not he that made the things that arewithout, the flesh, also make the things that are within, the soul? Bysaying this he clearly indicated to them that cleanness of both theouter and the inner man is the concern of one and the same God,for to him both belong, and he prefers mercy not only to a man'swashing of himself, but even to sacrifice. For he adds a rider, Givealms of those things which ye have, and all things will be clean unto you.Even if it is possible for that other god to have commanded mercy,yet he cannot have done it before he became known. Moreoverhere too it is shown that they were under criticism not as regardsthe God <they thought they served> but as regards the morallaw of that God who demanded of them figuratively cleanness ofvessels, but in open fact works of mercy. So also he rebukes themfor tithing pot-herbs, but passing over vocation and the love ofGod. Which God's vocation and love? His surely by the rule ofwhose law they were offering as tithes both rue and mint. Forthe sum of his remonstrance was this, that they were taking careabout trivial things, and were doing so for him for whom theywere doing no service of greater things, though he said, Thoushall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul andwith all thy strength, the God that called thee out from Egypt.bBut forthis, the time would not have permitted that Christ shoulddemand of them so immature, nay rather so unripe, an affectionfor a new god lately arrived—not to say, not yet openly revealed.Also when he complains of their seeking after primacy of place andthe honour of salutations, he is putting into action a judgement

IV.27

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

417

of the Creator, who calls princes of this sort rulers of Sodom,cand moreover forbids people to put their trust in their superiors,and what is more declares that that man is above all thingsmiserable who sets his hope on man.d But if the reason for a man'sseeking after high position is the desire to glory in other men'sservices, he who has forbidden this sort of services, of hoping andputting confidence in man, has thereby rebuked those who seekafter high positions. He attacks even the doctors of the law, be- cause they burdened others with burdens grievous to be borne,which they themselves lacked courage to approach even withone finger. In saying this he is not criticizing the burdens of thelaw, as one who denounces it. How can he have been a denouncer,when at that moment he was accusing them of passing over themore important things of the law, almsgiving and vocation andthe love of God? Not even these weighty things <did he denounce>,far less tithings of rue and cleanness of vessels. Else he would havejudged them excusable, if they had been unable to bear thingsunbearable. But what are the burdens he censures? Those whichthey piled on of their own, teaching for precepts the doctrinesof men, for the sake of their own convenience joining house tohouse so as to take away what was their neighbour's, exhortingthe people, loving gifts, seeking after rewards, laying waste thejudgements of the needy, so that the widow might be to them fora spoil, and the fatherless for a prey.e Of these again Isaiah says,Woe to them that are mighty in Jerusalem:f and. again, They that makedemands of you are lords over you.gWho make more demands thanthe doctors of the law? And if these were also displeasing toChrist, it was as his own that they displeased him: the doctors ofsome one else's law he would never have made an attack on. Butwhy have they to listen to that Woe even because they built upmemorials to those prophets whom their fathers had destroyed?Surely they were the rather worthy of praise, as by this work ofpious affection they testified that they did not assent to the deedsof their fathers: except that Christ was jealous—the sort theMarcionites have in disrepute—visiting the sins of the fathersupon the children even to the fourth generation. And what wasthat key of knowledge the doctors of the law held, if it was notthe interpretation of the law? To the understanding of it neither

IV.28

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

419

did they themselves draw near, because, he means, they did notbelieve—for unless ye believe, ye shall not understandh—nor did theylet others in, because in fact they preferred to teach the preceptsand doctrines of men. So then, is he who upbraided those whoneither themselves entered in nor afforded access to others, to beregarded as a disparager of the law or an upholder of it? Ifa disparager, then those who put restrictions on the law ought tohave won his approval: if an upholder, then he is not hostile tothe law. But, you object, all this he brought up against them withintent to put the Creator in a bad light, as being stern, and suchthat upon those at fault against him the woe would come. Yetwho would not rather be afraid to incense that stern one by defect- ing from him? So by insisting that he is to be feared Christ somuch the more taught them to seek his favour. And that is whatyou would expect the Creator's Christ to do.

28. [Luke 12: 1-21.] And so it was with good reason that hedisapproved of the hypocrisy of the pharisees, who loved Godwith their lips and not with their heart. Beware, he says to thedisciples, of the leaven of the pharisees, which is hypocrisy, not thepreaching of the Creator. The Son hates these who show insolenceto his Father: it is against him, not against another, that he wouldnot have his disciples so behave. Against that other, hypocrisymight perhaps have been permitted, and still have served as awarning for the disciples to beware of. It is in this sense that herejects the example of the pharisees: he was forbidding the com- mission of that offence against the God against whom the phariseescommitted it. Therefore when he had censured that hypocrisy oftheirs, which hid the secrets of their heart, and overshadowed withsuperficial services the hidden things of unbelief, that hypocrisywhich held the key of knowledge but neither entered in itself norallowed others to enter, thereupon he added, But there is nothingcovered that shall not be revealed, and nothing hid that shall not be known.Let no one suppose that by this he indicates the revealing andmaking known of a god previously unknown and kept hidden,when his suggestion is that even those things about which theymurmured and discussed among themselves—when for examplethey said concerning him, This man driveth not out devils but byBeelzebub—would come forth into the open and be found on the

IV.28

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

421

lips of men, following upon the publishing of the gospel. Afterthat he turns to his disciples and says, But I say unto you my friends,Be not afraid of them that can only kill you, and after that have no furtherpower upon you—but Isaiah will be seen to have already told themthis, See how the righteous is taken away, and no man observeth ita—But I will shew you whom to fear: fear him who after he hath killed hathpower to send into hell—indicating, no doubt, the Creator—and soI say fear him. At this point it could be sufficient for my purposeif by ordering him to be feared he indicates that he must not beaffronted, and by indicating that he must not be affronted heorders them to seek his favour, and so he who gives these com- mands belongs to that same God on whose behalf he requiresthis fear and avoidance of affront and seeking of favour. But Ican deduce it from what follows: For I say unto you, Whosoever shallconfess me before men, I will confess him before God. So that those whoconfess Christ will have to be put to death in the presence of men,and will of course have nothing more to suffer from them afterbeing put to death. These then will be they whom he begins bywarning not to fear being put to death and nothing more: forhe first says this about not fearing being put to death, so as tocontinue with his command to uphold the confession: And who- soever shall deny me before men will be denied before God—denied byhim who if he had confessed would have confessed him. For as heis to confess him that confesses, he it is also who will deny himthat denies. Moreover if it is the confessor who has nothing tofear after the killing, it will be the denier who has something tofear even after death. It follows then that if that is the Creator'sconcern which is to be feared after death, the penalty of hell,then the denier too is the Creator's concern. But if this is trueof the denier, it is true also of the confessor, who after being killedwill have no more to suffer from man, though evidently he wouldhave to suffer from God if he became a denier. And so Christbelongs to the Creator, since he indicates that deniers of himselfhave to fear the Creator's hell. So after this warning againstdenial there follows also an admonition to stand in dread ofblasphemy: Whosoever shall speak against the Son of man, it shall beforgiven him; but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shallnot be forgiven him. Now if both the forgiveness and the retentionof a sin involve the suggestion that God is a judge, then his will

IV.28

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

423

be that Holy Spirit who must not be blasphemed, for it is he whowill not forgive the blasphemy, even as just now that Christ washis who must not be denied, because he it is who will put thedenier to death in hell. But if, as is the case, Christ averts blas- phemy from the Creator, I cannot see in what sense he has becomean adversary to him. Or else, if by these sayings he indicatesdisapproval of his severity, as that he will not forgive blasphemyand will even put some to death in hell, we are left with this, thatthe spirit of that opponent god may be blasphemed with impunity,and his Christ denied, and that it makes no difference whetherhe be worshipped or despised, because as there is no penalty fordespising him, so from the worship of him there can be no hopeof any reward. Those brought before the authorities for examina- tion he forbids to think beforehand of their answer: For the HolySpirit, he says, will teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say. As theCreator possesses evidence of this sort, his too will be this precept,for the pattern of it has been already set. Balaam the prophet,in Numbers,b was summoned by king Balak to curse Israel, withwhom he was going into battle: at once he was filled with theSpirit, and pronounced not the curse for which he had come,but the blessing which the Spirit in that very hour put into hismouth: for he had already testified before the king's messengers,and soon afterwards before the king himself, that what Godshould put into his mouth, that he would speak. So much foryour new doctrines of your new Christ—doctrines which theCreator's servants long ago made a beginning of. Look again howevidently the example of Moses is the opposite of Christ's. Whentwo brethren quarrel, Moses without being asked steps betweenthem and rebukes him that does the wrong: Wherefore smitest thouthy fellow?, and is rejected by him: Who made thee a master or a judgeover us ?cBut when Christ was asked by a certain man to composethe strife between himself and his brother over the division ofthe inheritance, he refused his assistance, even in so honest acause. In that case my Moses is better than your Christ, for heis concerned about peace between brethren, and takes actionagainst wrongdoing: whereas the Christ of your supremely goodgod, who is not a judge, asks, Who has set me as a judge over you ? Hecould find no other terms of excuse, to save him from using thosein which a dishonest man and his disaffected brother had shaken

IV.29

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

425

off the upholder of honesty and family feeling. In fact, by makinguse of that ill expression he expressed approval of it, and of thatill action, by declining to compose peace between those brothers.Was it not rather that he disapproved of their driving Moses awaywith those words, and therefore in the similar case of those brothersat disagreement desired to put them to shame by calling thatexpression to mind? Evidently so. For he had himself, as theCreator's spirit, been present in Moses, and to him those wordswere said. I think I have already in another connection sufficientlyproved that boastfulness of riches is condemned by our God,who puts down the mighty from their seat and lifts up the poorfrom the dunghill.d From him then will have come that parableof the rich man who complimented himself on the produce ofhis lands, to whom God said, Thou fool, this night shall they requirethy soul, and whose shall those things be which thou hast prepared? Inthe same way that king who boasted to the Persians of his preciousthings and of the treasure-houses of his delights, heard hard words<from God> through Isaiah.e

29. [Luke 12: 22-59.] Who is this that would have us not beconcerned for our life, in the matter of feeding, or for our bodyin the matter of clothing? Surely he who has of old made pro- vision of these things for man, and as he continually supplies uswith them does with good reason forbid concern for them, as achallenge to his generosity. To the substance of the soul itself hehas given a value better than meat, and to the material of thebody a shape better than a garment: for his ravens neither sow norreap nor gather into storehouses, and yet receive nourishmentfrom him, whose lilies and whose grass neither weave nor spinand yet are clothed by him: his Solomon too was of excellentglory, yet was not better arrayed than one little flower. However,there is nothing so easy as that one should make provision, anda different one should command us not to be anxious about thatprovision, even when the latter is a disparager of the former. Ifindeed it is as a disparager of the Creator that he would have usnot take thought for the sort of trivialities for which neither ravensnor lilies toil, because in fact for their little worth they comenaturally to hand, this will shortly appear. Meanwhile why doeshe say they are of little faith? I mean, of which faith? That which

IV.29

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

427

they could not as yet show to god in its perfection, because hewas but lately revealed and they were just beginning to learn ofhim ? Or that which on this very account they owed to the Creator,their believing that he does of his own will grant the human racefull supplies of these things, and so ceasing to take thought aboutthem? For when he also adds, For these things do the nations of theworld seek after, because of course they do not believe in God theCreator and Provider of them all, this was a rebuke to thosewhom he would not have to be like the gentiles, by being littlein faith towards that same God towards whom he marked thegentiles as devoid of faith. But when he adds once more, But theFather knoweth that ye have need of these things, I must first inquirewhom Christ wishes them to understand by the Father. If he meanstheir own Creator, he thereby affirms the goodness of him whoknows what his sons have need of: but if he means that othergod, how does this one know that food and clothing are whatman has need of, when he has provided none of these? For if hehad known, he would have made provision. Or otherwise, if hedoes know what things man has need of, but has made no pro- vision of them, his failure to provide was due either to malice orto incapacity. Now when he declared these things necessary forman, he at once affirmed their goodness: for nothing that is evilis necessary. So he cannot be taken for a disparager of the worksof the Creator or of his bounties—and with this I complete theargument I just now deferred. But if it is another who has bothmade provision for, and now supplies, the things he knows arenecessary for man, how is it that Christ himself promises them?Or perhaps he is generous with another's property: for he says,Seek ye the kingdom of God, and these things shall be added unto you.Added by himself, he means. But if by himself, of what sort is he,who proposes to supply us with what is another's? If by theCreator, whose of course they are, who is this that promises whatanother will give? If these are additions to the kingdom, to beadministered as a second step, then the second step belongs tohim to whom the first belongs, and the food and raiment belongto him whose is the kingdom. So then the objective truth of theparables, and the balanced statement of the similitudes, is theCreator's promise in its fullness, for they have in view no otherthan him to whom they will be found applicable in every detail.Servants we are, for we have God for our Lord. We are to gird

IV.29

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

429

up our loins, which means, be freed from the entanglements ofthis over-dressed and complicated life. Also we must have ourlamps burning, that is, our minds alight with faith and resplen- dent with works of truth, and so be waiting for the Lord, thatis, for Christ. When he returns, where from? If from the wedding,he must be the Creator's Christ, for the Creator approves ofmarriage: if he is not the Creator's, not even would Marcion wheninvited have gone to the wedding, out of regard for his own godwho disapproves of marriage. So the parable has broken downin that lord and whom he stands for—or would do, if he hadnot been one to whom marriage is no offence. Again in theparable which follows one is badly astray who identifies with theperson of the Creator that thief by whom, if the householder hadknown the hour of his coming, he would not have suffered hishouse to be broken through. How can the Creator be taken fora thief, when he is the Lord of every man? No one becomes athief, or a breaker-up, of his own property: the one who doesthat, is he who has come down into another's property and istaking man away from his Lord. But he means that the thief,in our case, is the devil, and that if at the beginning the man hadknown the hour of his coming he would never have been brokenin on by him: and therefore he tells us to be prepared, becauseat an hour we think not the Son of man will come—not that heis himself the thief, but the judge, certainly, of those who willnot have prepared themselves nor have taken precautions againstthe thief. So then if he himself is the Son of man, I take him tobe a judge, and in the judge I lay claim to the Creator. If how- ever it is the Creator's Christ he refers to here under the name ofSon of man, so as to suggest that he is that thief the time of whosecoming we know not, you have the rule I recently laid down,that no one becomes a thief of his own property—saving alwaysthis, that in so far as he represents the Creator as one to befeared, to that extent he acts as his representative and belongsto the Creator. And so when Peter asks whether he has spokenthis parable to them, or even to all, with reference to them andto all who should ever be in charge of churches he sets out thesimilitude of the stewards, of whom the one who in his lord'sabsence has treated his fellow servants well will on his return beput in charge of all his goods: but the one who has acted other- wise will when his lord returns, on a day he has not reckoned for

IV.29

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

431

and at an hour he was not aware of,—and the lord is that Son ofman, the Creator's Christ, not a thief but a judge—be set on oneside, and his portion will be appointed with the unbelievers. Itfollows then either that he is here setting before us the Lord asjudge, and is instructing us on his behalf: or else, if he meansthat supremely good god, he here affirms that he too is a judge—much as the heretic dislikes it. For they try to mitigate the mean- ing here, when it is proved to apply to Marcion's god, as thoughit were an act of peacefulness and gentleness merely to set him onone side and appoint his portion with the unbelievers, as onewho has not been called to account but merely returned to hisown position. As if even this were not done by judicial process.How silly! What shall be the end of those set on one side?What but loss of salvation?—seeing they will be set aside fromthose who are to obtain salvation. And what is the condition ofunbelievers? Is it not damnation? Else if those set on one side,and those unbelievers, will not have anything to suffer, equallyby contrast those who are retained, along with the believers, willget no reward. But if those retained, and those believers, areto obtain salvation, it follows of necessity that this is what thoseset aside, and the unbelievers, will lose. And this will constitutea judgement, and he who proposes it belongs to the Creator. Andwhom else shall I understand by him who beats the servants withfew or with many stripes, and requires from them in proportionas he has entrusted to them, if not a God who repays? And whomdoes he teach me to obey, if not a God who gives a reward? It isyour Christ who cries out, Iam come to send fire on the earth. It isyour supremely good one, that lord who has no hell, he whoshortly before had restrained his disciples from calling down fireupon an inhospitable village, whereas my <God> burned upSodom and Gomorra with a cloud of fire, and of him the psalmsays, There shall go afire before him and burn up his enemies,aand byHosea he uttered the threat, Iwill send a fire upon the cities ofJudaea,b and by Isaiah, A fire is kindled from my indignation.cHemust be speaking the truth. If he is not the same who also sentforth his voice from the burning bush, then what possible firecan you claim he means? Even if it is a figure of speech, by thevery fact that he takes an element of mine, to present the thoughtsof his own mind, he is mine who makes use of mine. The metaphor

IV.29

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

433

of the fire must come from him whose is the veritable fire. Hewill himself be found to give a better explanation of the characterof that fire when he proceeds, Suppose ye that I am come to send peaceon earth? I tell you, Nay: but division. The book says, A sword:1, dbut Marcion corrects it, as though division were not the functionof a sword. So then, as he has not come for peace, by fire hemeans the fire of overthrow. Like battle, like fire: like sword, likeSame: neither of them proper for <your> lord. Finally he says, Thefather shall be divided against the son and the son against the father, the motheragainst the daughter and the daughter against the mother, the daughter inlaw against the mother in law, and the mother in law against the daughterin law. If for this battle between close relations the prophet'strumpet has sounded in these same words, I suspect perhapsMicah foretold it of Marcion's Christ.e And so he declared themhypocrites, for examining the face of the sky and the earth, butfailing to discern that time, the time at which he ought to havebeen recognized as fulfilling all the things which had been pro- phesied against them, and teaching accordingly. And yet whocould have recognized the times of him to whom he had no meansof proving the times belonged? With good cause he rebukes themfor not judging of themselves what is just. Already he has giventhis command, by Zechariah: Execute the judgement of justice andpeace:fby Jeremiah: Execute judgement and righteousness :gby Isaiah:Judge for the fatherless, justify the widow :hlaying it to the chargeeven of the vineyard of Sorech that it had not wrought judge- ment but a cry.i He then who had formerly taught them to dojustice by commandment, was now demanding that they shoulddo it also by free choice. He who had sown the seed of command- ment, was now pressing for abundant fruit of it. But now, howunfitting that that god of yours should enjoin righteous judge- ment, when he was engaged in overthrowing God the righteousJudge. For even that judge who sends men to prison, and doesnot bring them out until they have paid the last farthing, thesepeople explain in the person of the Creator, for disparagementsake. This I am bound to oppose on the same ground: that everytime they quote against me the Creator's sternness, this is alwaysproof that Christ belongs to him for whom he demands obedienceby reason of fear.

30. [Luke 13: 10-28.] Again in what terms did he counter thatobjection about a work of healing performed on the sabbath?Doth not every one of you on the sabbath loose his ass or his ox from thestall and lead him to watering? Thus, by having done this workaccording to the terms of the law, he did not break but confirmthe law, which commanded that no work should be done butsuch as had to be done for every living soul—and how much morefor a human soul? In the matter of the parables, it is well under- stood that I do in every case explain how apposite they are. Thekingdom of God, he says, is like a grain of mustard seed which a mantook and sowed in his own garden. Whom must we understand in theperson of the man? Evidently Christ, because, even though hebe Marcion's Christ, he is described as the Son of man, who hasreceived from the Father the seed of the kingdom, which is theword of the gospel, and has sown it in his garden, meaning theworld, and, if you like, on this occasion in a human being. Butsince he has said in his own garden, while neither the world northat human being belongs to Marcion's god, but to the Creator,it follows that he who has sown the seed on his own property isproved to be the Creator. Otherwise if for the sake of escapingthis noose they divert the person of the man away from Christand apply it to a man who takes the seed of the kingdom andsows it in the garden of his own heart, not even so can this matterapply to anyone but the Creator. For how can it be that thekingdom belongs to that most gentle god, when it is immediatelyfollowed by the fire of judgement with its sternness and tears?Of the second parable I do rather fear that perhaps it looks to thekingdom of that other god: for he has compared it to leaven,and not to that unleavened bread which is more usual with theCreator. This surmise too suits the purpose of those who aredestitute of arguments. Consequently I in turn shall drive outone fond conceit by another, and say that leaven as well is inkeeping with the Creator's kingdom, in that after it comes theoven, and the furnace of hell. How very often has he already shownhimself as a judge, and, in the judge, as the Creator? How veryoften does he eject people, and condemn them by this rejection?So in the present instance, When the master of the household, he says,is risen up—when? if not when Isaiah has said it, When he ariseth toshake terribly the eartha—and hath shut to the door,
evidently to shutout the unrighteous. And when they knock he will answer them,

IV.31

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

437

I know not whence ye are: and again when they tell the tale of howthey have eaten and drunk in his presence, and he has taught intheir streets, he will continue, Depart from me, all ye workers ofiniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth: where? outside,of course, where those will be who were shut out when the doorwas shut to by him. Thus from him there will be punishmentfrom whom comes that shutting out for punishment, when theysee the righteous entering into the kingdom of God, but themselveskept outside. Kept out by whom? If by the Creator, who then isto be inside, receiving the righteous into the kingdom? The goodgod? What concern is it then to the Creator, to keep outside forpunishment those whom his adversary has shut out, when theyought instead to have been accepted by himself, if you please,to spite that adversary? However, that god of yours, who is goingto shut out the unrighteous, must either know or not know thatthe Creator is going to keep them in detention for punishment.Either then their detention will be against his will, in which casehe is inferior to him who detains them, and against his will letshim have his way: or else, if he is willing for this to be done, hehimself has passed judgement that it was right for it to be done,and will prove to be no better than the Creator, being himself inapproval of the Creator's iniquitous act. If in no sense the theorywill hold, that one <Christ> is supposed to punish and another toset free, it remains that both judgement and kingdom belong toone <Christ> only, and that so long as both belong to that one,then he who passes judgement is the Creator's Christ.

31. [Luke 14: 12-24.] What sort of people does he say must beinvited to dinner or supper? The sort that he had told them ofby Isaiah: Break thy bread for the hungry, and the poor and such as haveno covering bring into thy housea—those in fact who have no meansof returning your hospitality. As Christ says that this return ofhospitality must not be sought for, but promises it at the resurrec- tion, this follows the Creator's practice, who has no pleasure insuch as love gifts and follow after a reward. Consider also theparable of the man who sent out invitations: to which of us is itbetter suited? A certain man made a supper, and invited many. Evidentlythe appointments of the supper signify the full satisfaction of

IV.31

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

439

eternal life. I remark first that total strangers, and persons boundby no rights of relationship, are not as a rule invited to supper:certainly it is easier to suppose those of the household are,and near friends. So then it was for the Creator to have giventhe invitation, since with him were connected those who receivedit, both through Adam by ties of humanity, and through thefathers seeing they were Jews: certainly not for that other, withwhom they were connected neither by nature nor by grant ofprivilege. Again, if he who has prepared the supper sends to theguests, on this account too it is the Creator's supper, for he hassent to give notice to guests previously invited through the fathers,but needing to have notice given them through the prophets: itis not the supper of one who has never sent anyone to give notice,and has done nothing before that by way of invitation, but hashimself suddenly come down, issuing his invitation while justbecoming known, collecting them up for the feast while justissuing the invitation, and making the hour of the supper thesame as that of inviting them to it. Those invited begin to makeexcuse. If invited by the other god, rightly so, as their invitationwas unexpected: if not rightly so, it was not unexpected. But iftheir invitation was not unexpected, then it came from theCreator from whom it came long before. For it was his invitationthey long ago declined, when for the first time they said to Aaron,Make us gods to go before us;band after that when they heard withthe ear, and did not hear, the invitation of God.c It was God alsowho with close application to this parable spoke by Jeremiah:Hear my voice, and I will be to you for a Lord and ye to me for a people,and ye shall walk in all my ways whichsoever I shall command you.dThis was God's invitation.
Yet, it says, they heard not, neither in- clined their ear. This was Israel's refusal. But they went away in thosethings which they had lusted after in their own evil hearte—I have boughta field, I have purchased oxen, I have married a wife. So againhe adds: Ihave even sent unto you all my servants the prophets—thiswill be the Holy Spirit, giving the summons to the feasters—byday and before daybreak.
Yet my people hearkened not, nor attended withtheir ears, but hardened their neck.fWhen this is reported to the masterof the household, he is moved <with anger>—well enough thathe was moved, for Marcion says his god has no emotions,

IV.31

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

441

and so in this also he is mine—and gives orders for a second choicefrom out of the streets and lanes of the city. Let us see whetherto the same effect as, again by Jeremiah, he asks, Have I becomea wilderness to the house of Israel, or a land left for desolation ?gThat is,Have I not those whom I may promote, and places from whichto promote them? Because my people hath said, We come not to thee.And so he sent for others to be invited, but still out of the samecity. After that, as there was still plenty of room, he ordered themto be gathered in from the highways and hedges, which now meansus, from the nations outside—no doubt with that hostility withwhich he says in Deuteronomy, I will turn my face away from them,and will shew what shall be to them at the last—that is, that otherswill take possession of their place—because it is a perverse generation,sons in whom is no faith. They have moved me to jealousy with that whichis not god, and have provoked me to anger with their idols, and I willmove them to jealousy with that which is not a nation, and with a foolishnation will I provoke them to anger.h With us, it means, whose hopethe Jews maintain: and of that <hope> the Lord says they shallnot taste, because Sion is left deserted as a watch-tower in a vineyardand a lodge in a garden of cucumbers,isince the time it refused thelast and final invitation to come to Christ. Of the rehearsal ofthis history in accordance with the covenant and propheciesof the Creator, how much can have any application to that<Christ> whose <god> has done all his work at one time, and hasneither history nor covenant to harmonize with the parable?Or what is to be his first invitation, and what his admonition atthe second stage? There ought first to be people making excuses,and afterwards others accepting. But as things are, he has comein time to invite both groups together, whether from the city orfrom the hedges, contrary to the picture the parable gives. Norcan he at once pass judgement on the superciliousness of peoplewhom he has not previously invited and to whom he is onlynow making approaches. Or on the other hand, if his judgementupon them for despising his invitation refers to a future act oftheirs, it follows that the promotion into their place of others fromamong the gentiles is also a presage of what is to be. Evidentlyto meet this need he is to come a second time to preach to thegentiles. Yet even if he is to come again, I suppose this will notbe as one who has still to invite his guests, but only to arrangethem in their places. Meanwhile, you who interpret the invitation

IV.33

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

443

to this supper as meaning the heavenly banquet of spiritualsatiety and joyfulness, must remember that even earthly promisesof wine and oil and corn and even of citizenship, are no lessemployed by the Creator as figures of things spiritual.

32. [Luke 15: 4-10.] Who is it that seeks for a lost sheep anda lost coin? Surely he who has lost them. And who is it has lostthem? He who had them in possession. And who was it had them?Their owner, of course. If then man is the property of none otherthan the Creator, then the man's owner had him in possession,he who had him lost him, he who lost him sought for him, hewho sought for him found him, and he who found him rejoiced.Thus the force of both parables is of no account in respect ofhim who is the owner of neither sheep nor coin—nor of man. Hehas not lost him, for he never had him in possession: nor soughtfor him, for he never lost him: nor found him, for he has noteven sought for him: nor rejoiced, for he has not found him. Andconsequently this rejoicing over a sinner's repentance, that is, overthe recovery of one that was lost, is the prerogative of him wholong ago declared that he had no wish for a sinner's death, butrather for his repentance.

33. [Luke 16: 1-17.] Who those two masters are who he sayscannot be served, because of necessity one of them will be spurnedand the other protected, he himself makes clear when he setsthem down as God and mammon. And next, if you have no oneto explain to you whom he intends you to understand by mam- mon, you can hear it from himself. When advising us so to useworldly possessions as to provide for ourselves future friendshipsand support, he refers to the example of the servant who, whendismissed from office, relieves his lord's debtors by reducing theirobligations, and so gains security for himself: and adds, And I sayunto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness,meaning, with money, as that servant did. For all of us knowthat money is the author of unrighteousness, and the tyrant of allhuman society. So when he saw that the covetousness of thepharisees was subservient to it, he slung out this sentence, Yecannot serve God and mammon. So the pharisees, who were covetousof money, derided him, because they understood that by mam- mon he meant money. So let no one suppose that by 'mammon'

IV.33

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

445

one must understand the Creator, or that Christ had called themaway from the Creator's service. How so? Learn rather from thishow Christ has shown that God is one. He has made mentionof two masters, God and mammon, the Creator and money. So,ye cannot serve God, the God they were thought to be serving, andmammon, to which they preferred to commit themselves. But ifhe had been representing himself as that other, it would havebeen three masters, not two, that he indicated. For the Creator ismaster, being God, and in fact much more a master than mam- mon, and deserving much greater respect, being much more themaster. For how can it be that when he had called mammon amaster and had mentioned him in the same sentence with God,he should in truth have omitted to mention those people's ownGod, the Creator? Or was it that by not mentioning him he ad- mitted it was permissible to serve him, since it was only himselfand mammon he said could not be served? So when he speaks ofGod, in the singular—though he would have mentioned theCreator too, if he himself had been that other <god>—it was theCreator he did mention, by the fact that he did without furtherdefinition refer to him as master. And so light will be thrown onthis, in what sense it was said, If ye have not been faithful in the un- righteous mammon, who will entrust to you that which is true? He means'unrighteous money', not 'the Creator', for even Marcion saysthe Creator is 'righteous'. And if ye have not been found faithful inthat which is not your own, who will give you that which is mine?1Forto servants of God that which is unrighteous must always be'not their own'. But how can the Creator be an alien to thepharisees, when he is the particular God of the Jewish nation?If then these expressions do not apply to the Creator but tomammon, the questions Who will entrust to you that which is moretrue? and, Who will give you that which is mine? cannot be taken forquestions by one god about another god's grace. He might indeedhave been thought to mean this, if by censuring them for unfaith- fulness towards the Creator, not towards mammon, he had bymentioning the Creator introduced distinctions between <him and>some second god who would refuse to entrust his own truth to thoseunfaithful to the Creator; as likewise he can indeed be taken forthe Christ of that other god, except that he is set before us in

33. 1 At Luke 16: 12 the MSS. vary between 'that which is ours' and 'thatwhich is your own': 'that which is mine' (i.e. Christ's) was Marcion's invention.

IV.33

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

447

terms by which he is kept at a distance from the subject underdiscussion. Seeing also that the pharisees, by justifying themselvesbefore men, were placing in man their hope of reward, his rebuketo them had the same bearing as that of the prophet Jeremiah,Wretched is the man that hath hope in man.aAnd as he says next, ButGod knoweth your hearts, this was a reference to the power of thatGod who declared himself a shining light, searching the reins andthe hearts.bIf he adverts on their pride, That which is highly esteemedamong men is abomination to God, he sets Isaiah in front of their eyes,For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be against every one that is despitefuland proud, against every one that is high and lifted up, and they shall bebrought low.c I can now find out why Marcion's god remained allthose long ages in hiding. He was waiting, I suspect, until heshould learn all these things from the Creator. So he learned them,right down to the time of John, and then after that came forthto announce the kingdom of God, saying, The law and the prophetswere until John, since which time the kingdom of God is announced. Asthough we too did not know that John has been set as a sort ofdividing-line between old things and new, a line at which Judaismshould cease and Christianity should begin—not however thatby the action of any alien power there came about this cessationof the law and the prophets, and the inception of that gospelin which is the kingdom of God, Christ himself. For if, asI have proved, it was the Creator who prophesied that oldthings would pass away and new things take their place; and ifJohn is set forth as the forerunner who prepares the ways ofthat Lord who will bring in the gospel and proclaim the king- dom of God, and from the fact that John is now come, this mustbe that Christ who was to come after John as forerunner; and ifold things have come to an end, and new things have begun, withJohn as the point of division: then that which conforms to theCreator's ordinance will not be so unexpected as to amount toproof that the kingdom of God takes its origin from every imagin- able source except the sunset of the law and the prophets uponJohn, and the daybreak that came after. So then let heaven andearth pass away,d as have the law and the prophets, more quicklythan one tittle of the words of the Lord :2 for Isaiah says, The wordof our God abideth for ever.eFor Christ, who is the Word and Spiritof the Creator, had in Isaiah so long before prophesied of John

33. 2 Marcion seems to have combined Luke 16: 17 with 21: 33.

IV.34

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

449

as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way ofthe Lord,fand as one who was to come for this end, that thesequence of law and prophets should from that time cease—bybeing fulfilled, not by being destroyed—and that the kingdomof God should be proclaimed by Christ: which is why he appendedthe statement that it would be easier for the heavenly bodies thanfor his words to pass away, so affirming that this too which hehad spoken of John had not passed into abeyance.

34. [Luke 16: 18-31.] But, <you allege>, Christ forbids divorce:his words are, Whosoever sendeth away his wife, and marrieth another,committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth one that is sent away byher husband, is no less an adulterer. So as to forbid divorce on thisside as well, he makes unlawful the marriage of a divorced woman.Moses however permits divorce, in Deuteronomy: If any man hathtaken a wife, and hath dwelt with her, and it come to pass that she findnot favour with him because some unseemly thing hath been found in her,he shall write a bill of divorcement and give it into her hand and send heraway from his house.aYou notice the contrast between law andgospel, between Moses and Christ? To be sure I do. For you havenot accepted that other gospel, of equal truth, and of the sameChrist, in which while forbidding divorce he answers a particularquestion concerning it: Moses because of the hardness of your heartcommanded to give a bill of divorcement, but from the beginning it wasnot sob—because in fact he who made them male and femalehad said The two of them shall become one flesh.cWhat thereforeGod has joined together shall a man presume to put asunder?So by this answer he did two things: he set a guard upon Moses'regulation, as his own, and set in its proper context the Creator'sordinance, being the Creator's Christ. But seeing I have under- taken to confute you from those documents which you haveaccepted, I will meet you on this ground, as though <this> Christwere mine. When he forbids divorce, while yet claiming as hisfather him who has joined together the male and the female,must he not rather have defended than abolished Moses' regula- tion? But now, let us suppose that this Christ is yours, giving oppo- site teaching to Moses and the Creator—provided that if I proveit was not opposite, I may claim him as mine. I maintain that hehas here issued his prohibition of divorce under a certain condi- tion—if any man sends away his wife with the intention of taking

IV.34

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

451

another. His words are, Whosoever sendeth away his wife and marriethanother hath committed adultery, and whosoever marrieth one sent awayby her husband is no less an adulterer—<marrying> a woman sent
away <is forbidden> for the same reason for which her husband
is not allowed to send her away, so that another may be taken:
marrying a woman unlawfully sent away is like marrying one
not sent away, and the man who does this is an adulterer. So
the marriage not properly dissolved remains a marriage: and for
her to marry while the marriage remains, is adultery. Thus if it
was under these conditions that he prohibited sending away
a wife, this was not a total prohibition: and this that he has
not totally prohibited he has permitted under other conditions,
where the reason for the prohibition is absent. Thus his teaching
is not in opposition to Moses, for he in some form retains his
regulation—I do not yet say he confirms it. If however you deny
that divorce is in any way permitted by Christ, how comes it
that you yourself make separation between married people? For
you neither allow the conjunction of male and female, nor do
you admit to the sacrament of baptism and the eucharist persons
married elsewhere, unless they have made conspiracy between
themselves against the fruit of matrimony, and so against the
Creator himself. In any case, what in your view does a husband
do if his wife has committed adultery? Will he keep her? But, you
know, your own apostle does not permit the members of Christ
to be joined to a harlot.d It appears then that divorce, when
justified, has Christ's authority. Next also Moses receives support
from him, for he prohibits divorce under the same heading as
Christ does—unless there be found in the woman some unseemly
thing. For in Matthew's gospel Christ says, Whosoever shall send awayhis wife, saving for the cause of adultery, causeth her to commit adultery: e
and the man who marries one sent away by her husband is no less
declared an adulterer. But except for the cause of adultery, neither
does the Creator put asunder that which he himself has joined
together: for Moses again in another place makes the rule that
the man who had married after violence committed, could not
send away his wife at any time.f But if a marriage enforced in
consequence of violence is to be permanent, how much more
shall one contracted willingly and by agreement? This too has
the authority of prophecy, Thou shalt not send away the wife of thy

IV.34

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

453

youth.gThus you find Christ by himself treading at every pointin the Creator's footsteps, whether in permitting divorce or inforbidding it. You will find him also, in whichever directionyou will, taking forethought regarding marriage: while he willnot have it dissolved, he forbids separation: and while he will nothave it continue under stain he permits divorce. You to yourshame refuse to join together those whom your own Christ hasjoined. To your shame you put them asunder without that justcause for which your Christ also would have them put asunder.It is my next duty to show you also from what source the Lordderived this judgement, and for what purpose he intended it. Soit will become more fully evident that he had no intention ofsuppressing Moses' ruling by this sudden introduction of the sub- ject of divorce: for in fact there was no sudden introduction, sinceit had its origin in the aforesaid mention of John. John rebukedHerod because contrary to the law he had married the wife ofhis deceased brother, who had a daughter by her. The law doesnot allow this, or give any command of this sort, except whenthe brother has died childless, so that seed may be raised up tohim by his own brother, of his own wife. So John had been castinto prison by that same Herod, and afterwards put to death.So our Lord, having made mention of John, and in effect ofwhat led to his death, did under the figure of adultery and unlaw- ful marriage make this attack upon Herod, when he pronouncedan adulterer even one who has married a woman sent away byher husband. In this way he could pass sterner censure uponHerod's godlessness, who had married a woman sent away byher husband by death, which is a sort of divorce, even thoughthis was his brother, who had a daughter by her—on whichaccount his action was illicit, suggested by lust and not by thelaw—and therefore had put to death that prophet who censuredhis breaking of the law. The observations I have made here willbe of service also for the narrative that follows, of the rich manin pain in hell and the poor man at rest in Abraham's bosom.For that too, as far as the surface of scripture goes, is set beforeus abruptly, though as concerns the purport of its meaning ittoo is linked with the reference to the ill usage of John and hisdisapproval of Herod's unlawful marriage: for it delineates thelatter end of both, Herod in torment, and John comforted, sothat even while alive Herod might hear it said, They have there Moses

IV.34

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

455

and the prophets, let them hear them. But Marcion twists it into anotherdirection, so as to claim that both of the Creator's rewards inhell, whether of torment or of comfort, are intended for those whohave obeyed the law and the prophets, while he defines as heavenlythe bosom and the haven of his particular Christ and god. I shallhave an answer to this: his <defective> eyesight is put to reproofby the scripture itself, which in distinction from hell marks offfor the poor man Abraham's bosom. For, I suppose, hell is onething, Abraham's bosom quite another. For it says that betweenthose regions a great gulf intervenes and prevents passage fromeither side to the other. Moreover the rich man could not havelifted up his eyes, even from a great distance, except towardsthings higher, even from the far abyss through that immensedistance of height and depth. Hence it becomes plain to anywise man who has ever heard of the Elysian fields, that there isa sort of distinct locality referred to as Abraham's bosom, for thereception of the souls of his sons even from among the gentiles—for he is the father of those many nations who are to be reckonedAbraham's offspring—and those of that same faith by whichAbraham himself believed God, beneath no yoke of the law, andwithout the sign of circumcision.h So I affirm that that region,Abraham's bosom, though not in heaven, yet not so deep as hell,will in the meanwhile afford refreshment to the souls of therighteous, until the consummation of all things makes completethe general resurrection with its fullness of reward: for then willbe made manifest that heavenly promise which Marcion claimsfor his own <god>, as though the Creator had made no publica- tion of it. Towards this Christ buildeth up his ascent into heaven,iasAmos says, evidently for his own people, where there is also thatplace eternal of which Isaiah speaks: Who shall announce to you theplace eternal? Who but Christ, it means, who walketh in righteousnessand speaketh of the direct way, hating unrighteousness and iniquity.j Butif that place eternal is promised by the Creator, and it is he whobuilds up the ascent into heaven, he too who promises that theseed of Abraham shall be as the stars of heaven, on account, ofcourse, of that heavenly promise, why should it not be possible,without prejudice to that promise, for the expression 'Abraham'sbosom' to mean a sort of temporary refuge for the souls of thefaithful, in which there exists already in outline an image of that

IV.35

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

457

which is to be, with the prospect of a sort of candidature for onejudgement or the other? A warning besides to you heretics, whileyou are still alive, of Moses and the prophets preaching one God,the Creator, preaching also one Christ, who is his, and that thejudgement both of punishment and of eternal salvation restswith the one and only God, who both kills and makes alive. Yesbut, Marcion says, our god's warning from heaven commandedthem to hear not Moses and the prophets, but Christ: Hear him.kQuite so. Because by that time the apostles had heard Moses andthe prophets as much as they needed, having become followersof Christ through belief in Moses and the prophets. Peter couldnot have taken upon him to say Thou art the Christ,lunless he hadfirst heard and believed Moses and the prophets, since by themalone was there so far any announcement of Christ. So this faithof theirs had earned confirmation also by that voice from heaven,which commanded them to hear him whom they had takenknowledge of as preaching good tidings of peace, good tidingsof good things,m announcing the place eternal, and building upfor them his own ascent into heaven.n But the statement madein hell, They have there Moses and the prophets, let them hear them, hadreference to those people who did not believe, or did not entirelyso believe, that the announcement made by Moses and the pro- phets of punishments after death had reference to the pride ofriches and the boastfulness of luxury, and that they were decreedby that God who puts down princes from their thrones and liftsup the needy out of the dunghill.o Since then diversity of sentenceon the one side or the other is within the Creator's competence,it is no difference of two divinities we have here to decide on,but a difference in the facts under consideration.

35. [Luke 17.] Thereupon he turns to his disciples, and pro- nounces Woe upon the author of offences, saying that it werebetter for him if he had not been born,a or if a millstone werehanged about his neck and he were hurled into the depth, ratherthan have offended one of these little ones—meaning his disciples.Consider how severe a punishment he threatens him with. Forit is he and no other who will take vengeance for offence to hisdisciples. Observe then that he is a judge, and that he declares

IV.35

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

459

his care for his own with the same regard for them as the Creatorbefore him: He that toucheth you, as it were toucheth the apple of myeye.bIt is the same meaning, of one and the same speaker. Abrother who sins, he says must be rebuked. He who neglects todo this, is himself at fault, because either from hatred of hisbrother he would have him continue in sin, or else he spares himthrough acceptance of his person, though he has it in Leviticus:Thou shall not hate thy brother in thy heart: thou shall surely rebuke thyneighbour—and of course brother—and shall not take up sin because ofhim.cNor is it any wonder that this is the teaching of him who for- bids you to disregard even your brother's cattle if you find themstraying on the road,d so as to fail to bring them back to yourbrother—how much more your brother to himself. Also he tells youto forgive your brother who sins against you, even seven times.Too little, evidently. With the Creator there is more, for he sets nomeasure, but makes the pronouncement without limit, that youare not to be mindful of your brother's malice,e and commandsyou to grant forgiveness not to one who asks for it but even toone who does not ask: for his intention is not that you shouldforgive the offence, but forget it. The law concerning lepers hasa profound meaning, in respect of the various forms of thatdisease and of the high priest's inspection of it.f This it will beour task to ascertain, while it falls to Marcion to set against itthe strict meaning of the law, so as in this case too to maintainthat Christ is in opposition to it. For Christ dispenses with thestrict rules of the law here too in the healing of ten lepers, whomhe merely told to go and show themselves to the priests, andcleansed them as they went, with no contact and no word ofcommand, but by silent power and unaided will. And surelywhen it has once been put on record that Christ is the healer ofsicknesses and disabilities, and when he has been proved so byfacts accomplished, we have no need for any discussion of theform and manner of those healings, or for the Creator in Christto be challenged before the law if he has himself performed someaction otherwise than he laid down in the law. For in fact theLord does his works in one way by himself or by his Son, inanother way by the prophets his servants, especially those workswhich are evidences of his might and power: for these, being hisown works, are more excellent in glory and power, and therefore

IV.35

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

461

may rightly be different from those done by agents. But thingslike this have already been said elsewhere in my previous evidence.Now although he has said before this that there were many lepersin Israel in the days of Elisha the prophet and that none of themwas cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian,g the matter of numberwill be no indication of a difference of gods, to the diminutionof the Creator who heals only one, and the advancement of himwho cleansed ten. For who can doubt that many more could havebeen cured by him who had already cured one, rather than theten by him who had never in the past cured even one? But he ischiefly concerned in this statement to attack Israel's Unbelief orpride, in that though there were among them many lepers, anda prophet was not unavailable, even when proof had been given,no one made speed to God who was at work in the prophets. Sothen, since he himself was with primary and plenary authoritythe high priest of God the Father, he did examine them in accor- dance with the secret meaning of the law, which indicates thatChrist is the true examiner and remover of the defilements ofmen. But he also gave them the order which was in the surfacemeaning of the law: Go, shew yourselves to the priests. Why so, if hisintention was to cleanse them first? Was it perhaps as one castingscorn on the law, so as to let them see, as they were healed on theway, that the law was nothing to them, nor the priests either?Any man must himself answer for it, who thinks Christ so tied torule as this. No, we need worthier interpretations, more con- formable to faith: that the cause of their healing was that whencommanded to make their way to the priests, according to thelaw, they did as they were told. For it is beyond belief, that ob- servers of the law should have won their healing from a destroyerof the law. But why did he give no such order to the originalleper?1 Because neither did Elisha to Naaman the Syrian: butthat does not mean he was not the Creator's prophet. I have givena fair answer: yet he who has believed understands also somethingdeeper. Hear then what the reasons were. The act took place inthe parts of Samaria, from which in fact one of the lepers hadcome. But Samaria had revolted from Israel, deriving that schismfrom the nine tribes torn away by Ahijah the prophet, which

35. 1 Who this original leper was, is not clear: certainly not the leper atLuke 5: 12-16, for he did receive such an order, which Marcion had notexcised.

IV.35

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

463

Jeroboam had settled about Samaria. Now in other ways toothe Samaritans were always pleased with themselves, aboutmountains, and ancestral wells; as in the gospel of John thatSamaritan woman in conversation with our Lord at the well,Art thou greater, and so on: and again, Our fathers worshipped in thismountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem men ought to worship.hSo nowhe who by Amos had said Woe to them that shall trust in the mountainof Samaria,inow vouchsafes to restore even it, and of set purposecommands it to show itself to the priests—because there were nopriests except where there was a temple—thus making theSamaritan subject to the Jew, because salvation is of the Jews,although the Samaritans also are Israelites. For the whole of thepromise to the tribe of Judah was Christ himself: so that theymight know that at Jerusalem were both priests and temple andthe matrix of religion and the fountain, not a <mere> well, ofsalvation. And so, when he saw that they had acknowledged thatthe law must be fulfilled at Jerusalem, as they were now fit tobe justified by faith without the observance of the law, he gavethem healing. So again when he marvelled that that one aloneof the ten, a Samaritan, on his release remembered to give thanksto God, he did not command him to offer a gift according to thelaw, because he had already offered a sufficient sacrifice by givingglory to God—and it is in this way that our Lord wishes the lawto be interpreted. Yet to which god did the Samaritan returnthanks, when not even an Israelite had until then heard of anygod but one? Surely to the same God to whom all those pre- viously healed by Christ. And so he was told, Thy faith hath madethee whole, because he had understood it was his duty to offera true oblation to Almighty God, which is the giving of thanks,in his true Temple, in the presence of Christ his true High Priest.But not even the pharisees can be taken to have consulted ourLord about the kingdom of any alternative god, asking when itwas to come, so long as no publication of another god had asyet been made by Christ: nor can he be supposed to have givenhis answer about the kingdom of any god except the one he wasasked about. The kingdom of God, he says, cometh not with observation,neither do they say, Lo here, lo there, for behold the kingdom of God iswithin you. Surely everyone must interpret these words, Is withinyou, as 'in your hand', 'within your power', if you give ear, if

IV.35

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

465

you do the commandment of God. But if the kingdom of God isin the commandment, set opposite to it Moses, as my antithesessuggest, and there is complete agreement. The commandment,he says, is not on high, nor far from thee. It is not in heaven, that thoushouldest say, Who shall go up to heaven, and bring it down for us, andwe will hear it and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldestsay, Who shall go over the sea and bring it for us, and we will hear it anddo it ? The word is near thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, and in thyhands, to do it.jThis will be the meaning of, Not here, not there; forbehold the kingdom of God is within you. And to prevent hereticalaudacity from arguing that our Lord's reply to them was con- cerned with the Creator's kingdom, about which they consultedhim, and not with his own, the words that follow stand in theway. For when he says that the Son of man must first suffer manythings, and be rejected before his coming, in which also thekingdom will be revealed in its objective reality, he shows that itwas of his own kingdom that he gave the answer, and that it wasin expectation of his own sufferings and rejections. But as he hadto be rejected, and afterwards acknowledged and lifted up andglorified, he gleaned this word 'rejected' from that passage wherein David, in the figure of the stone, both his appearances wereprophesied of, the first to be refused, the second to be honoured.The stone, it says, which the builders rejected, the same is become thehead of the corner: this is the Lord's doing.kThere would be no purposein it, if we supposed that God prophesied of the contempt or theglory of someone else, and had not in view him whom he had hadin view in the figure of the stone and the rock and the mountain.But if it is his own coming he speaks of, why does he compareit with those dark and frightful days of Noah and Lot, if he is agod kind and gentle? Why does he warn them to remember Lot'swife, who despised the Creator's orders and suffered for it, if heis not coming with judgement, to avenge the breach of his ownorders? Even if he does take vengeance, as the Creator does, if hedoes judge me, he has no business to inform me of that by the evi- dences of the God he is overthrowing: else I must think that thatGod is informing me. But if he is here speaking not of his owncoming, but of the Jewish Christ's, let us even now be in expecta- tion lest he make some prophecy of his own coming, believingmeanwhile that it is himself he prophesies of in every place.

IV.36

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

467

36. [Luke 18.] To commend perseverance and persistence inprayer, he applies the parable of a judge who by the persistenceand perseverance of a widow's complaints was compelled to giveher a hearing.. So he points to God as a judge to be prayed to,not himself, if <as you allege> he is not a judge. But he adds thatGod will avenge his own elect. If then he who is an avenger mustalso be a judge, in that case he has set his approval on the Creatoras a better sort of God when he indicates that he is an avenger ofhis own elect who cry day and night to him. He next refers to theCreator's temple, and describes two men who worship withopposite intentions, the pharisee with pride, the publican withhumility, and tells how the one in consequence went down to hishouse rejected, the other justified: and in giving this instructionby what rule prayer ought to be made, he has here too specifiedthat that God ought to be prayed to from whom men couldexpect a response to that rule of prayer, a response either in rejec- tion of pride or in justification of humility. I find in Christ noindication of any temple, or of people who pray in it, or of anyjudgement, of any other god than the Creator. Him he commandsus to worship in humility, as one who raises up the lowly; not inpride, for he puts down the mighty. What other god has hecommended to my worship? By what rule? With what hope?None, I imagine. For the prayer too which he has taught us, Ihave proved is conformable to the Creator. It is another matterif as a god supremely good, and of his own nature kind, he doesnot wish even to be worshipped. Who, he asks, is supremely good,except one, that is God? Not as though he has indicated by this thatone out of two gods is supremely good, but that there is one onlysupremely good God, who is for this reason the one supremelygood because he is the only God. And indeed he is supremely good,sending rain upon the just and the unjust, and making his sunto rise upon the good and the bada—bearing with, and feeding,and helping even Marcionites. So then when he is asked by thatcertain man, Good Teacher, what shall I do to obtain possession ofeternal life?, he inquired whether he knew—which means, waskeeping—the Creator's commandments, in such form as to testifythat by the Creator's commandments eternal life is obtained:and when that man replied, in respect of the chief of them, thathe had kept them from his youth up, he got the answer, One

IV.36

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

469

thing thou lackest; sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thoushall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me. Come now, Marcion,and all you companions in the misery and sharers in the offen-siveness of that heretic, what will you be bold enough to say?Did Christ here rescind those former commandments, not tokill, not to commit adultery, not to steal, not to bear false witness,to love father and mother? Or is it that he both retained theseand added what was lacking? And yet, even this commandmentof distributing to the poor is spread about everywhere in the lawand the prophets, so that that boastful keeper of the command- ments was convicted of having money in much higher esteem.So then this also in the gospel remains valid, Iam not come todestroy the law and the prophets, but rather to fulfil.bAt the same timealso he relieved of doubt those other questions, by making itclear that the name of God, and of supremely good, belongs toone only, and that eternal life and treasure in heaven, and him- self besides, pertain to that one, whose commandments, by addingwhat was lacking, he both conserved and enriched. So he is tobe recognized as in agreement with Micah, in this passage wherehe says, Hath he then shewed thee, O man, what is good? Or what doththe Lord require of thee but to do justice, to love mercy, and to be preparedto follow the Lord thy God?cFor Christ is that Man, declaring whatis good: the knowledge of the law, Thou knowest the commandments:to do justice, Sell the things thou hast: to love mercy, And give to thepoor: to be prepared to go with the Lord, And come, follow me. TheJewish race was from the beginning so clearly distinguished intotribes and communes and families and households, that no mancould easily be of unknown descent, at least from the recent censusof Augustus, of which perhaps the records were still on display.But Marcion's Jesus—yet there could be no doubt that one hadbeen born, who was seen to be a man—he indeed, not havingbeen born, could have had in the public records no note of hisdescent, but would have had to be reckoned as one from amongthose persons who in some way or other were classed as unknown.When then that blind man had been told that he was passing by,why did he cry out, Jesus thou son of David, have mercy on me, exceptthat he was with good reason regarded as the son of David, whichmeans, of the family of David, in consideration of his mother andhis brethren, who had in fact on one occasion because of people's

IV.36

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

471

knowledge of them, been reported to him as being present? Butthey that went before rebuked the blind man, that he should holdhis peace. Quite properly: because he was making a noise, notbecause he was wrong about the son of David. Or else you mustprove that those who rebuked were convinced that Jesus was not theson of David, if you wish me to believe that that was their reasonfor putting the blind man to silence. Yet even if you did provethis, the man would more readily assume that those people werein ignorance, than that the Lord could have allowed to pass afalse description of himself. But the Lord is patient.d He is nothowever one who stands surety for error—but rather a revealerof the Creator—so that he would not have failed first to takeaway the cloud of this aspect of that man's blindness, and soprevent him from thinking any longer that Jesus was the son ofDavid. Far from it: to preclude you from speaking ill of hispatience, or from attaching to him any charge of keeping backthe truth, or from saying he is not the son of David, he expressedthe clearest possible approval of the blind man's commendation,rewarding it with the gift of healing, and with witness to his faith.Thy faith, he says, hath made thee whole. What do you say was thesubstance of that blind man's faith? That Jesus had come downfrom that god of yours with intent to overthrow the Creator anddestroy the law and the prophets? that he was not the one fore- ordained to come forth from the root of Jesse and from the fruitof David's loins, a giver of gifts also to the blind? No, there didnot yet exist, I think, people of Marcion's sort of blindness, thatsuch should have been the content of that blind man's faith whichhe expressed in the cry, Jesus, thou son of David. Jesus knew thatthis was what he is, and wished it to be known of all men, so thatalthough the man's faith was based on better eyesight, althoughit was possessed of the true light, he gave it the further gift ofexternal vision, so that we too might be taught what is the rule,and also the reward, of faith. He who wishes to see Jesus, mustbelieve him the son of David by descent from the virgin: hewho does not so believe will never be told by him, Thy faith hathsaved thee, and consequently will remain blind, falling into theditch of an antithesis, which itself falls into a ditch. For this iswhat happens when the blind leads the blind. For if, <as yousuggest>, blind men once came into conflict with David at hisrecapture of Sion,e fighting back to prevent his admission—

IV.37

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

473

though these are a figure of that nation equally blind, whichwas some time to deny admission to Christ the son of David—and therefore Christ came to the blind man's help by way ofopposition so that by this he might show himself not the son ofDavid, being of opposite mind, and kind to blind men, such asDavid had ordered to be slain: <if this is so> why did he say he hadgranted this to the man's faith, and false faith at that? But infact by this expression son of David I can, on its own terms, bluntthe point of the antithesis. Those who came into conflict withDavid were blind: but here a man of the same infirmity hadpresented himself as suppliant to the son of David. Consequently,when he gave this satisfaction, the son of David was in somesort appeased and restored his sight, adding also a testimony tothe faith by which he had believed this very fact, that he mustaddress his prayer to the son of David. For all that, David Ithink will have been offended by the insolence of those Jebusites,not by the state of their health.

37. [Luke 19: 1-27.] Salvation also comes to the house of Zac- chaeus. How did he earn it? Was it that even he believed thatChrist was come from Marcion? No, for there remained still inthe ears of all of them that blind man's cry, Have mercy upon me,Jesus thou son of David,aand all the people were giving praises toGod—not Marcion's god, but David's. For in fact Zacchaeus,though a foreigner,1 yet perhaps had breathed in some knowledgeof the scriptures by converse with Jews, or, what is more, withoutknowing about Isaiah, had fulfilled his instructions. Break thybread, he says, to the hungry, and bring into thy house them that have nocovering—and this he was even then doing when he brought theLord into his house and gave him to eat. And if thou see the naked,cover himb—at that very moment he promised this, when he offeredthe half of his goods for all works of mercy, thus loosing the bondsof enforced contracts, and letting loose the oppressed, and break- ing down every unjust assessment, in the words, And if I have takenanything from any man by false accusation, I restore it fourfold. And soour Lord says, Today is salvation <come> to this house: he bears witnessthat those were works of salvation which the Creator's prophet

37. - Luke 19: 1-10 does not say that Zacchaeus was a foreigner, unless that isimplied by his being a chief tax-collector. In LXX allophylus is the word forPhilistine.

IV.38

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

475

had enjoined. But when he says, For the Son of man is come to savethat which was lost, I do not at present claim that he who had cometo save that which was lost, was he to whom belonged, and fromwhom had become lost, that which he had come to save; I turnmy steps towards a different subject. There is no doubt that aman is under discussion. Since a man consists of two substances,body and soul, the question we must consider is, in respect ofwhich kind of substance he may be supposed to have become lost.If of the body, then his body was lost, his soul was not. Thatwhich was lost, is what the Son of man saves: and so the fleshobtains salvation. If he was lost in respect of his soul, then it isthe loss of the soul which is intended for salvation: the flesh, whichhas not got lost, is safe already. If the whole man was lost, inrespect of both substances, then the whole man must of necessitybe brought to salvation, and there is an end of that opinion of theheretics who say the flesh finds no salvation. And besides, thereis confirmation of the fact that Christ belongs to the Creator, sincein full accord with the Creator he promised salvation of the wholeman. Also the parable of the servants, who are judged variouslyaccording as they account for their lord's money entrusted tothem, indicates that God is a judge, even on the side of severity,not only promoting to honour, but even taking away that whicha man thinks he has. Or else, if here too it is a pretence of his,that the Creator is an austere one, taking up that which he hasnot laid down, and reaping that which he has not sown, hereagain the instruction comes to me from him whose the money iswhich <the parable> advises me to put on usury.

38. [Luke 20: 1-8, 22-44.] Christ knew the baptism of John,whence it was. Why then did he ask the question, as though hedid not know? He did know that the pharisees would not answerhim. Why then did he ask, to no purpose? Was it not that hemight judge them out of their own mouth, or even out of theirown heart? So take this episode to bear on the justification of theCreator, and on Christ's agreement with him, and ask yourselfwhat the consequence would have been if the pharisees hadreturned an answer to his question. Suppose they had answeredthat John's baptism was from men: they would at once have beenstoned to death. Some anti-marcionite Marcion would havestood up and said, 'See a god supremely good, a god the opposite

IV.38

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

477

of the Creator's doings! well aware that men were going to fallheadlong, he himself put them on the edge of a precipice.' Forthis is how they treat of the Creator, in his law about the tree.aBut suppose John's baptism was from heaven. And why, Christsays, did ye not believe him ? So then he whose wish it was that Johnshould be believed, who was expected to blame them for notbelieving him, belonged to that God whose sacrament John wasthe minister of. At all events, when they refused to answer whatthey thought, and he replied in like terms, Neither do I tell you bywhat power I do these things, he returned evil for evil. Render toCaesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's.Which shall be the things that are God's? Those that are like Cae- sar's penny, God's own image and likeness. So his command meansthat man must be given back to his Creator, in whose imageand likeness and name and metal he was stamped into shape.Let Marcion's god go and fetch coinage for himself—Christ'scommand is for the penny, which is man, to be rendered to itsown Caesar, not to a stranger—except that one has to do this,who has not a penny of his own. It is a just and creditable rulethat whenever a question is asked the meaning of the reply mustbe pertinent to the purpose of the inquiry. It is the act of a mad- man, when a person asks for judgement on one matter, to answerhim about something different. So let us not attribute to Christan act unseemly even for a man. The sadducees, who say thereis no resurrection, having a question to ask about this, set beforeour Lord a case out of the law, touching a woman who accordingto legal requirement had married seven brothers who died oneafter the other, and asked which man's wife she would be reckonedto be at the resurrection. This was the subject of the question, theobject of their consultation. Christ's answer must have been onthe same terms. He had no fear of anyone, nor any reason whywe should think he either refused their questionings, or used themas an opportunity for giving secret hints of things which in othercircumstances he did not teach openly. His answer then was, thatthe children of this world marry. You see how pertinent to thecase: because the question asked was about the world to come,in which he was going to define the rule that no one marries, hefirst stated the fact that marriage does take place here wherethere is also death. Those however whom God has accounted

IV.38

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

479

worthy of the inheritance of that world, and the resurrection fromthe dead, neither marry, <he says,> nor are given in marriage,because they cannot die any more, since they become like theangels, being made the sons of God and of the resurrection. Sincethen the meaning of the reply must be turned in no other directionthan the purpose of the inquiry, if by this meaning of the replythe purpose of the inquiry is satisfactorily met, then our Lord'sreply has no other meaning than that by which the questionreceives an answer. You have the times during which marriageis permitted and those in which it is not, arising not from a ques- tion about this in itself, but about the resurrection. You havealso a confirmation of the resurrection in itself, and the wholeof what the sadducees were asking questions about: for theywere not asking questions about a different god, nor did they seekto know about their own particular law of marriage. If howeveryou make Christ give an answer to questions that were not sub- mitted to him, you are saying that he was incapable of answeringthe questions he was asked about—that in fact he was trappedby the sadducees' cleverness. Beyond now what is strictly neces- sary, having dealt with the main question, I shall take up thediscussion against the quibbles they attach to it. They have seizedupon the text of scripture, and have read on like this: 'Thosewhom the god of that world has counted worthy'.1 They attach'of that world' to 'god', so as to make out that there is another god,'of that world'. Whereas it ought to be read, Those whom God hascounted worthy, so that by punctuating after 'God', 'of that world'belongs to what follows, that is, Those whom God hath countedworthy of the inheritance of that world, and of the resurrection. For thequestion he was asked was not about the god of that world, butabout its conditions, whose wife the woman was to be in thatworld, after the resurrection. So again, on the subject of marriage,they misrepresent his answer, so as to make out that, The childrenof this world marry and are given in marriage, refers to the Creator'smen whom he allows to marry, whereas they themselves, whomthe god of that world, that other god, has counted worthy of theresurrection, even here and now do not marry, because they are

38. 1 'The god of that world etc.' was Marcion's tendentious alteration ofLuke 20: 35, 'They that are accounted worthy to attain to that world, etc.,There is nothing in the parallel passages Matt. 23: 30 and Mark 12: 25 tojustify the alteration. Cf. also V. 11.9 'the god of this world'.

IV.39

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

481

not the children of this world—although it was the marriage ofthat world he was asked about, not this, and the marriage he saidthere was not, was that about which he was consulted. So thenthose who had taken in the real force of his words and theirexpression and punctuation, understood no other meaning thanthat which was pertinent to the subject he was asked about. Andso the scribes comment, Master, thou hast well said. For he hadagreed with them about the resurrection, explaining the mannerof it, as against the heresy of the sadducees. And here too he didnot refuse the commendation of those who took it that that waswhat his answer meant. If now the scribes regarded Christ as theson of David, and David himself calls him Lord, what does thismean to Christ? It was not that David was correcting a mistakeof the scribes, but that David was paying respect to Christ, whenDavid affirmed that Christ was his Lord even more than his son—and this would not be in character with a destroyer of the Creator.But on my side how very apposite an interpretation. He hadrecently been called upon by that blind man as son of David:what he then refrained from saying, as he had no scribes present,he now in their presence brings forward without suggestion fromthem, so as to indicate that he whom the blind man, following thescribes' doctrine, had called merely David's son, was also David'sLord. So he rewards that blind man's faith, by which he hadbelieved him the son of David, but criticizes the tradition of thescribes, by which they failed to know him also as Lord. Anythingthat had bearing on the glory of the Creator's Christ, could onlyhave been sustained in this form by one who was himself theCreator's Christ.

39. [Luke 21: 8-38.] We have already reached agreement on therightful ownership of the names, that it appertains to him whofirst proclaimed his own Christ among men, and changed a nameto Jesus. Thus we shall also be in agreement concerning the pre- sumption of one who says that many will come in his name, whenit is not his name if he is not the Christ and Jesus of the Creator,to whom the rightful possession of the name belongs, and when,what is more, he forbids our acceptance of others who are in likecase with himself, seeing that he, no less than they, has come ina name not his own—unless it was his purpose to forewarn thedisciples against lying claimants to the name, he himself through

IV.39

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

483

rightful ownership of the name possessing the truth of it.1 Sothen those people will come, saying Iam Christ.aYou, <Marcion,>will receive them: you have received one exactly like them. Forthis one too has come in his own name. What then of the factthat there is still to come the real owner of the names, the Christand Jesus of the Creator? Shall you reject him? But how unfair,how unjust, how unworthy of a god supremely good, that youshould not receive him when he conies in his own name, when youhave already received another in his name. Let us see also withwhat signs he marks the times. Wars, I imagine, and kingdomagainst kingdom, and nation against nation, and a plague, andfamines and earthquakes, and fearful sights, and great signs fromheaven, all of which are in keeping with a stern and fearsomeGod. When he adds even that these things must needs be, whodoes he claim that he is, one who brings the Creator to ruin, orone who defends him? It is the Creator's appointments he affirmsmust needs be fulfilled, though being himself supremely good, andthese so sad and so fearsome, he would have taken them awayrather than have decreed them, if they had not been his very own.But before these things he tells them that persecutions and suffer- ings will come upon them, for martyrdom and also for salvation.See how this was foretold in Zechariah: The Lord Almighty shalldefend them, and they will devour them, and stone them with sling stones,and they will drink their blood like wine, and will fill their bowls as ofthe altar, and the Lord shall save them in that day like sheep, even his ownpeople, because the holy stones roll down.bAnd that you may not thinkthis is prophesied of the sufferings which awaited them fromforeigners, in the name of all those wars, consider of what sortthey are. No one when telling of wars to be waged with lawfularms takes account of stoning, which is more usually met within popular assemblies and unarmed tumult. No one in warmeasures all those rivers of blood by the capacity of bowls, norequates this with the blood shed upon one single altar. No onedescribes as sheep those who fall when under arms in war, them- selves contending with equal ferocity, but those rather who areslain in their own station and patience, in self-surrender rather thanin self-defence. He says in fact, Because the holy stones roll down, not,

39. 1 The sentence begins as an attack on Marcion's Christ, but from 'unlessit was his purpose' drops the irony, and reverts to the truth, that he who spokethese words is the Creator's, the real, Christ.

IV.39

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

485

Because soldiers fight. For the stones are those foundations uponwhich we are being built up, laid down, as Paul says, upon thefoundation of the apostles;cand these holy stones began to rolldown when they were set up against the assault of all men. Hereagain he tells them not to meditate beforehand what ought to betheir answer at judgement seats: for it was he who had put intothe mouth of Balaamd what he had not thought of, indeed theopposite of what he had thought of, and when Moses made theexcuse of slowness of tongue had promised him a mouth.e Andof that wisdom itself, which no one could resist, he gave evidenceby Isaiah, This man shall say, I am God's, and shall cry in the name ofJacob, and another shall be inscribed by the name of Israel.f For what isthere wiser or more irresistible than a plain and express confessionin the name of a martyr who prevails with God ? For this is themeaning of Israel. And no wonder that a check was put uponpremeditation by one who himself received from the Father theability to speak words in season: The Lord giveth me the tongue ofdiscipline <to know> when I ought to utter speech: except that Marcionsuggests that Christ is not subject to the Father. That there wereprophecies of persecution from near kindred, and of evil-speakingfrom hatred of the name, I have no need to point out a second time.But by endurance, he says, ye shall make out your salvation, of which infact the psalm speaks, The endurance of the just shall not perish forever.gSo it says in another place, Right dear is the death of the justh—because of his endurance, no doubt, seeing that Zechariah hasit, But there shall be a crown for them that have endured.iBut so thatyou may not presume to argue that the apostles were put todistress by the Jews as preachers of your other god, rememberthat the prophets also suffered the same things from the Jews,though they were apostles of no other god than the Creator.Having next indicated the time of its destruction, when Jerusalemshould have begun to be compassed about with armies, he goeson to tell of the signs of the last end, wonders in the sun and moonand stars, and on earth distress of nations in astonishment, asby the roar of the waves of the sea, because of their expectationof the evils overhanging the world. And that even the powers ofthe heavens must be shaken, listen to Joel: And I will shew wondersin the heaven and in the earth, blood and fire and vapour of smoke: thesun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before thatgreat and notable day of the Lord come.jYou have also Habakkuk,

IV.39

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

487

The earth will be rent asunder with rivers, the peoples will see thee andbe in travail, thou wilt scatter the waters in passing by, the deep utteredhis voice, the summit of his fear was lifted high: the sun and the moonstood still in their order: into the light thy gleamings will go forth, intothe lightning <of> the thunder <of> thy shield: in thy threatening thou wiltdiminish the earth, and in thine indignation thou wilt put down thenations.kOur Lord's pronouncements and the prophets' are, Ithink, in agreement regarding the shaking of the heavens andthe earth, the planets and the nations. And what does the Lordsay next? And then shall they see the Son of man coming from heaven,with great power. But when these things come to pass, ye will look up andlift up your heads, because your redemption has drawn nigh—at thetime of the kingdom, to be sure, to which will apply the parablethat follows. So ye also when ye see all these things come to pass, knowye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. This will be that great andnotable day of the Lord, when he comes as the Son of man fromheaven, as Daniel says: Behold one like a son of man coming with theclouds of heaven, and what follows: and there was given to him kinglyauthority,lthat which in the parable he had gone forth to claim,when he left money with his servants for them to do business with:and all the nationsl—those which the Father had promised him inthe psalm, Desire of me and I will give thee the gentiles for thine inheri- tancem—and all glory serving him, and his dominion is everlasting, thatshall not be taken away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed,lbecause in it they will not die, nor marry, but will be like theangels. Again of that advent of the Son of man, and the benefitof it, in Habakkuk: Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people,even for the salvation of thine anointed ones,nthose who are to look upand lift up their heads, when redeemed at the time of the king- dom. So then since there is agreement in these statements in- volving promises, as there was in those which involved shatteringdown, because of this harmony between the prophets' pronounce- ments and our Lord's, you will be unable at this point to interposeany distinction, so as to refer the shatterings to the Creator—agod of savagery, shatterings such as a god supremely good couldnot permit, far less look forward to—but assign to your supremelygood god those promises which the Creator in ignorance of himhad not prophesied about. Otherwise, if they were his own promisesthat <the Creator> prophesied, and these were not different fromthe promises of Christ, <the Creator> will be equal in liberty with

IV.39

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

489

your supremely good god, and it will appear that nothing betteris promised by your Christ than by my Son of man. You will findthat the whole sequence of the gospel narrative, from the disciples'question as far as the parable of the fig-tree, is in its close-knitreasoning so attached on one side and on the other to the Son ofman as to combine together in him both the sorrows and thejoys, both the shatterings and the promises: nor can you detachfrom him either part of them. So then as it is but one Son of manwhose advent is appointed between those two terms of shatteringsand of promises, with that same one Son of man are necessarilyassociated both the distresses of the nations and the aspirationsof the saints: for his position between them is such that he belongsequally to both terms, bringing by his advent an end to the one,the distresses of the nations, and a beginning to the other, theaspirations of the saints. So that if you admit that the coming ofthe Son of man is my Christ's advent, the more you impute tohim those imminent sorrows which precede his advent, the moreyou are forced also to ascribe to him those good things which taketheir rise from his advent: or alternatively, if you prefer <thecoming of the Son of man> to be the advent of your Christ, themore you ascribe to him those good things which arise from hisadvent, the more you are forced also to impute to him thosesorrows which precede his advent. For the sorrows are no lessclosely attached to the corning of the Son of man by going before,than are the good things by coming after. Ask yourself then towhich of the two Christs you assign the role of the one Son ofman, so that to it may be referred both the one series of eventsand the other. You have admitted either that the Creator issupremely good, or that your god is stern in nature. Finally, con- sider the evidence of the parable itself: Behold the fig tree and allthe trees: when they have produced fruit, men understand that summer hascome near: so ye also, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye thatthe kingdom of God is at hand. So if the appearance of fruit on smalltrees gives the sign for the summer season, because it precedes it,no less do the collisions of the world, by going before it, markbeforehand the sign for the kingdom. Now every sign belongs tohim to whom belongs the property of which it is the sign, andupon every property the sign is set by him to whom the propertybelongs. Thus if the collisions are signs of the kingdom, as thefruiting of trees is of summer, it follows that the kingdom is the

IV.40

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

491

Creator's, since to him are ascribed the collisions which are thesigns of the kingdom. He had begun by saying that these thingsmust needs be—things so frightful, so horrible—your god supremelygood—certainly things foretold by the prophets and the law:and so he was not destroying the law and the prophets, for heaffirms that those things must needs be accomplished which theyhad foretold. And now he adds that heaven and earth shall notpass away unless all things be fulfilled. What things are these?If the things which are from the Creator, quite rightly will theelements await the fulfilment of their Lord's proceedings: if thethings which are from that god supremely good, I doubt if heavenand earth will await the accomplishment of things which theopponent has decided on. If the Creator is going to bear with this,he is not a jealous god. So then, let earth and heaven pass away:for so their own Lord has determined. Provided that his wordabide for ever: for so Isaiah has foretold it will.o Also let the dis- ciples take heed, lest at any time their hearts be overcharged withsurfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this world, and sothat day come upon them suddenly, like a snare—because theyhave forgotten God amid the world's abundance and interests.The warning will have come from Moses.p So deliverance fromthe snare of that day will come from him who of old issued thiswarning. There were also other places in Jerusalem where hemight teach, and other places outside Jerusalem where he mightgo out and rest. Yet by day he was teaching in the temple, as he hadhimself foretold by Hosea, In my temple they found me, and in it wasthere disputation with them.qBut by night he went out into the olive-garden: for so had Zechariah declared: And his feet shall stand inthe mount of Olives.rThere were also appropriate times for hearinghim: for they had to come together early in the morning, becauseafter saying, by Isaiah, The Lord giveth me the tongue of learning,he added also, In the morning he applied to me an ear for hearing.sIfthis is to destroy the prophets, what must it be to fulfil them?

40. [Luke 22: 1-20.] Likewise he knows at what season that onemust needs suffer, whose passion the law prefigures. For out ofall those Jewish feasts he has chosen the day of the passover. Forwith reference to this mystery Moses had declared, It is the Lord'spassover.aSo he makes his affection plain: With desire I have desiredto eat the passover with you before I suffer. Look at this destroyer of the

IV.40

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

493

law, who had desired to keep the passover. Was it perhaps that
Jewish lamb's flesh would give him pleasure? Or not rather that he
was to be brought as a sheep to sacrifice, and as a sheep before
the shearer was not to open his mouth,b and so had that great
desire to accomplish the figure of his saving blood? He could
perhaps have been betrayed by some stranger: then I could not
have said that even in this the psalm was fulfilled, He that hath.eaten bread with me shall lift up his heel against me.cHe could have
been betrayed and no one have been paid for it: for how little had
a betrayer to do in the case of one who met with people openly,
and could have been taken by force quite as easily as betrayed.
But this would have been in keeping with a different Christ, not
one who was fulfilling prophecies: for it is written, Because theysold the righteous.dAlso the amount and the destination of the
price paid, brought back when Judas repented, and spent on
the purchase of the potter's field, as is contained in Matthew's
gospel, is prophesied of beforehand by Jeremiah: And they tookthe thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, or honoured,and gave them for the potter's field.' So then, having affirmed that
with desire he had desired to eat the passover, his own passoverf--
it would not have been right for God to desire anything not his
own—the bread which he took, and divided among his disciples,
he made into his body, saying This is my body, that is, the figure
of my body.1 Now there could have been no figure, unless it
had been a veritable body; for an empty thing, which a phantasm
is, would have been incapable of figure. Or else, if you suppose
he formed bread into a body for himself because he felt the lack
of a veritable body, then it was bread he ought to have delivered
up for us. It would well suit Marcion's vacuity, that bread should
be crucified. Yet why does he call his body bread, and not rather
a pumpkin, which Marcion had instead of a heart? For he did not
understand how ancient was this figure of the body of Christ,
who himself speaks by Jeremiah, They have devised a device againstme, saying, Come and let us cast wood upon his bread,gmeaning, the
cross upon his body. So Christ, who throws light upon ancient

40. 1 Harnack (Marcion, p. 144, note 2) mistakenly attributes this explanation
to Marcion, and credits him with a figurative interpretation of the dominical
words. The explanation is Tertullian's, and figura does not indicate anything
merely figurative, but a visible objective shape. So above, I. 14. 3. panem quocorpus suum repraesentat, 'makes his own body present': also III. 19. 3. In the
next sentence, panem corpus sibi finxit, the verb means 'moulded', not pretended'.

IV.41

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

495

things, has made it quite clear what on that earlier occasion hemeant by bread, when here he calls bread his own body. So alsoat the reference to the cup, when establishing the covenantsealed with his own blood, he affirmed the reality of his body:for there can be no blood except from a body which is flesh. Foreven if our adversaries suggest some sort of body which is not offlesh, certainly it can have no blood in it if it is not of flesh. Sothe proof that there is a body will stand firm by the evidence offlesh, as the proof that there is flesh stands by the evidence ofblood. And so that you may recognize in wine an ancient figurefor blood,2 Isaiah will help: Who is this that cometh out of Edom, theredness of his garments out of Bozrah, so glorious in apparel which isviolent with strength? Wherefore the redness of thy garments, and thyvestments as from the outlet of the winepress, full and trodden down?hFor the prophetic Spirit, as one having already in full view ourLord coming to his passion, clothed of course in flesh, since init he suffered, indicates by that redness of apparel the blood- stained garment of his flesh that was trodden down and strainedout by the violence of the passion, as in the outfall of a winepress—because it is from a winepress that men come down as if stainedwith blood from the redness of wine. Much more evidently didGenesis in the blessing of Judah, of whose tribe the origin ofChrist's flesh was to proceed, as early as that depict Christ inJudah: He shall wash his garment in wine and his vesture in the bloodof the grape:iby garment and vesture indicating his flesh, and bywine his blood. So now also he consecrated his blood in wine, ashe had of old used wine as a figure for blood.

41. [Luke 22: 22, 33-4, 54-71.] Woe, he says, to that man by whomthe Son of man is betrayed. So now it is confirmed that woe must beunderstood as a calling down of wrath and threatening, and betaken as the expression of one angry and offended—unless perhapsJudas was to commit with impunity so great a crime. If withimpunity, the woe is pointless: if not with impunity, then he mustexpect to be punished by him against whom he has committedthe crime of betrayal. Now if he knowingly permitted a man whom

40. 2 Epiphanius, Panarion 42. 3. 3, says that water was used at a MarcioniteEucharist. At I. 14, when speaking of Marcionite practice, Tertullian doesnot mention wine. The present passage reads like a strong suggestion thatMarcionites ought to observe the dominical command.

IV.41

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

497

he had himself elected into his company, to plunge into so greata crime, you can no longer bring under discussion concerning theCreator, in the matter of Adam, objections which recoil back onyour own god as well—that he either did not know, seeing he didnot by providence prevent the sinner: that he was unable toprevent him, if he did not know: or was unwilling to do so, if heboth knew and was able: and therefore must be judged of evilintent, as having permitted his own man to perish for his sin.I advise you therefore to recognize the Creator in this <Christ>,rather than make your supremely good god like him, contraryto your own doctrine. Also when Peter has made a rash utterance,and he turns him rather in the direction of denial, you can see heis a jealous god.1 Moreover, as he was the Christ of the prophetsit was his due to be betrayed with a kiss, being the Son of himwhom the people loved with their lips. When brought into thecouncil he is asked whether he is himself the Christ. With referenceto what Christ could the Jews have asked this question, excepttheir own? Why then did he not, even then, tell them of that other ?Because, you answer, he had to be able to suffer. By which youmean, so that he, supremely good, might plunge into crime thosewho were still ignorant. 'But even if he had told them, he wouldstill have suffered: for he said, If I tell you, ye will not believe: andby refusing to believe, they would have continued to demand hisdeath.' But surely he would have been more likely to suffer if hehad declared himself <the Christ> of that other god, and conse- quently an opponent of the Creator. And so it was not with theintention of suffering that he forbore even then to explain thathe was different: but because they desired to extort a confessionfrom his own mouth, and yet even if he confessed were not goingto believe, though they ought to have known who he was fromhis works which were in fulfilment of the scriptures, it was hisright, as one to whom unchallenged recognition was due, to hidehimself from them. And for all that he still gives them a chance,when he says, Hereafter shall the Son of man be seated at the right handof the power of God. From Daniel's prophecy he put himself before

41. 1 A jealous god. A note by Franciscus Junius explains this to mean thatChrist delivered over to temptation a disciple who had made a rash promise,with intent that the glory might belong to himself alone. But, we add, tibimarks this as a debating point against Marcion: it is Marcion's Christ who takesaction which Marcion stigmatizes as characteristic of the Creator.

IV.42

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

499

them as the Son of man,a and from David's psalm as sitting at theright hand of God.b And so from that saying of his, and its bring- ing together of <two texts of> scripture, they were fully enlightenedas to whom he wished them to take him to be, and asked him,Art thou then the Son of God? Of what god, if not the only Godthey knew about? Of what god, if not him who they rememberedhad said in the psalm to his son, Sit thou on my right hand? 'But heanswers, Ye say it, as though it were, I do not.' No, but he affirmedthat he was that which they had said when they asked him thatsecond time. Yet how can you prove that they were asking aquestion, and not themselves making the statement when theysaid Thou art then the Son of God? In that case, as he had indirectlyproved by the scriptures that they must understand he was theSon of God, and they perceived this—Thou art then the Son ofGod, which thou art unwilling to declare openly—he likewiseanswers in the affirmative, Ye say it: and so clearly was this hismeaning, that they continued in the impression which his state- ment indicated.

42. [Luke 23.] So when they had led him to Pilate they beganto accuse him of saying he was Christ a King, meaning no doubtthe Son of God, who was to sit at God's right hand. Surely theywould have arraigned him under some other charge, being indoubt whether he had said he was the Son of God, if he had notby the statement Ye say it, indicated that he was what they said.Also when Pilate asked, Art thou the Christ?1he answered againThou sayest it, so that he might not seem, through fear of the au- thority, to have refused to answer. So the Lord is set in judgement,and has set in judgement his own people. The Lord himself is comeinto judgement with the ancients and the princes of his people,aas Isaiahhas it. From then onwards he fulfilled all that is written of hispassion. The heathen thereupon raged, and the peoples imagined vainthings: the kings of the earth stood up, and their rulers gathered togetherinto one, against the Lord and against his Christ.b The heathen, theRomans who were with Pilate; the peoples, the tribes of Israel:the kings, in Herod: the rulers, in the high priests. Also when hewas sent by Pilate as a gift to Herod he proved the truth ofHosea's words: for it was of Christ that he prophesied, And they

42. 1 Pilate's question was 'Art thou the King of the Jews?': the chief priestsasked, 'Art thou the Christ?'—Luke 22: 66 sq.

IV.42

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

501

shall bring him in bonds as a present to the king.cSo Herod was exceed- ing glad to see Jesus, yet he heard from him not a word: for asa lamb before the shearer he opened not his mouth,dbecause the Lordhad given him the tongue of discipline, that he might know inwhat manner he ought to bring forth speech:e that tongue infact which in the psalm clove to his throat,f he now proved thetruth of by not speaking. Barabbas, a man of most criminal con- duct, is released as though a good man: while Christ, mostrighteous, is demanded for death as though a murderer. Alsotwo malefactors are crucified along with him, that he might benumbered among the transgressors. Evidently the statement thathis raiment was divided among the soldiers and partly assignedby lot, has been excised by Marcion, because he had in mindthe prophecy of the psalm, They parted my garments among them,and upon my vesture did they cast lots.gSo he will have to excise theCross as well, for the same psalm is not silent about it: Theypierced my hands and my feet.hThe whole of what followed is to beread there. Dogs are come about me, the council of the wicked hath laidsiege against me: all they that saw me laughed me to scorn: they havespoken with their lips and wagged their heads <saying>, He trusted inGod, let him deliver him.iWhat now of the evidence of his garments?Have the benefit of your falsifying: Christ's garments are thewhole psalm. See also how the powers of heaven are shaken:it was their Lord who was dying. If his rival had been in distressthe whole heaven would have blossomed out with lights, the sunwould have leaped up with his rays, the day would have preferredto remain bright, gladly looking on while Marcion's Christ wascrucified. These proofs would have been at my disposal even ifthey had not been prophesied. Iwill clothe the heaven with darkness,jsays Isaiah. This also will be the day of which Amos speaks:And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that the sun shall godown at noon—you see also the significance of the sixth hour—and there shall be darkness over the land.kAlso the veil of the templewas rent, by the breaking out of the angel, who deserted thedaughter of Sion, leaving her as a watch-tower in a vineyardand a lodge in a garden of cucumbers.l And see how it continues,even in the thirtieth psalm, to present Christ in his own person:he cries aloud to the Father, so as even in dying, with his lastwords, to fulfil the prophets:mAnd having said thus, he gave up hisspirit. Who did? Did the spirit give up itself, or the flesh give

IV.43

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

503

up the spirit? But the spirit cannot have given up itself: there isa difference between the one which gives up and the other whichis given up. If the spirit is given up, it has to be given up by some- thing else: whereas if the spirit had been by itself, the word usedwould have been 'depart' and not 'give up'. Who is it then thatgives up the spirit, if not the flesh? For the flesh breathes whileit has the spirit, and therefore when it loses it, gives it up. Inshort, if there was no flesh, but only a phantasm of flesh, and therewas also a phantasm of spirit, and the spirit gave itself up, andby giving itself up departed, then no doubt the phantasm de- parted when the spirit, which was a phantasm, departed, andthe phantasm along with the spirit ceased to be there. In thatcase, nothing remained on the cross, after he gave up his spiritnothing was hanging there, nothing was begged for from Pilate,nothing was taken down from that gallows, nothing was wrappedin linen, nothing was laid in a new sepulchre. And yet it was notnothing. What then was it? If a phantasm, then Christ was stillwithin it. If Christ had gone away, then he had taken thephantasm with him. It only remains for heretical presumptionto say that a phantasm of a phantasm remained there. Thoughif Joseph knew that that was a real body which he had treatedwith so great affection—that Joseph who had not consentedwith the Jews in their crime—Blessed is the man who hath not goneaway in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, and hathnot sat in the seat of the pestilences.n

43. [Luke 24.] It was indeed necessary that the man who pro- vided for the Lord's burial should be spoken of in prophecy, andin that same text deservedly be called blessed: for neither doesprophecy leave unnoticed the services of those women who cameto the sepulchre before daybreak with the spices they had pre- pared. Of this he speaks by Hosea: That they may seek my face,before daybreak will they be awake unto me saying, Let us go and returnunto the Lord, because he hath torn and will heal us, he hath smitten andwill have mercy upon us: after two days will he heal us, and on the third daywe shall rise again.aWho can forbear to believe that these wordsrecurred again and again in the thoughts of those women betweenthe grief of their present destitution, with which they seemed tothemselves smitten by the Lord, and the hope of his resurrection,by which they rightly thought to be restored? By his body not

IV.43

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

505

being found, his sepulture was taken away out of the midst, as Isaiahsays.b Also in the same place two angels were seen: this numberof attendants was the customary usage of that Word of Godwhich by two witnesses is established. The women returningfrom the sepulchre, and from that vision of angels, were foreseenby Isaiah, who says: Ye women, coming from the vision, come ye,cevidently to report the Lord's resurrection. It is well also that thedisciples' unbelief persisted, so that right to the end our claimshould stand that to the disciples Christ Jesus had declared him- self no other than the Christ of the prophets. For when two ofthem were on a journey, and the Lord had joined himself withthem, while it did not appear that it was he himself, and he evenpretended not to be aware of the things that had happened, theysaid, But we were thinking that he himself was the Redeemer of Israel,evidently Israel's, and the Creator's, Christ. To that extent hadhe never declared himself any other. Otherwise they would nothave supposed him the Creator's: and when he was supposed tobe the Creator's, he would not have tolerated this suppositionabout himself if he had not been who he was supposed to be.Otherwise he must be thought of as the author of error and arenegade from the truth: and this will not suit your descriptionof him as a god supremely good. But not even after his resurrec- tion did he show them that he was any different from him theysaid they thought him to be. It is true that he severely rebukedthem: O fools, and slow of heart in not believing all the things whichhe spoke to you. In saying this he proves he belongs not to anothergod but to the same God. For the angels had said the same to thewomen: Remember the things he spoke to you in Galilee, saying that theSon of man must needs be delivered up, and be crucified, and the thirdday rise again. And why 'must needs', except it was so written byGod the Creator ? That is why he rebuked them, for being offendedat his passion, and nothing more, and for being doubtful in thefaith of the resurrection reported to them by the women, and forthese reasons ceasing to believe that he was who they hadtrusted he had been. And so, since it was his wish to be believedto be that which they had trusted he was, he affirmed that he waswho they had trusted he was, the Creator's Christ, the Redeemerof Israel. Now concerning the verity of his body, what could beclearer? When they were in doubt whether he were not a phan- tasm, or even supposed that he was a phantasm, he said to them,

IV.43

ADVERSUS MARCIONEM

507

Why are ye troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts ? Beholdmy hands and feet, that it is I myself: for a spirit hath not bones, as yesee me having. Now here Marcion, on purpose I believe, has ab- stained from crossing out of his gospel certain matters opposed tohim, hoping that in view of these which he might have crossedout and has not, he may be thought not to have crossed out thosewhich he has crossed out, or even to have crossed them out withgood reason. But he is only sparing to statements which he pro- ceeds to overturn by strange interpretation no less than by dele- tion. He will have it then that <the words> A spirit hath not bones asye see me having, were so spoken as to be referred to the spirit, 'asye see me having', meaning, not having bones, even as a spirithas not. And what sense would there be in such a round-aboutway of putting it, when he might have said quite plainly,
Fora spirit hath not bones, as ye see that I have not'? Why againdid he offer his hands and feet for them to examine—and thesemembers consist of bones—if he had no bones? Why does he add,And know that it is I myself, though of course they knew
beforehand
that he had a body? Or else, if he was in every respect aphantasm, why did he upbraid them for thinking him a
phantasm?
And yet, while they still believed not, he asked them forfood, so as to show that he even had teeth.

I have, I think, fulfilled my promise. I have set before youJesus as the Christ of the prophets in his doctrines, his judgements,his affections, his feelings, his miracles, his sufferings, as also inhis resurrection, none other than the Christ of the Creator. Andso again, when sending forth his apostles to preach to all thenations,d he fulfilled the psalm by his instruction that their soundmust go out into all the world and their words unto the ends ofthe earth.e I am sorry for you, Marcion: your labour has been invain. Even in your gospel Christ Jesus is mine.